![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 14 of 14. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 15:00:32
I'm in transference with every male I see.
Intellectually I understand that the feelings are my problem, I understand that I have big problems. I've had two major relationships with my life, three counting my therapist, because that was a relationship too, of a certain type. In those three the transference was really strong, I became superlatively insecure and tortured.
I mean, really tortured. To the point where I was, this last time, Superbitch.
Posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 15:42:43
In reply to Transference Sucks, posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 15:00:32
(((((Susan)))) Sometimes I wonder if transference is just a protection for the therapist. Because they have to keep objective, to help us, and if they thought we were having real feelings for them, it would confuse them more. Plus since it is unethical for them to have a relationship with us, wouldn't it be safer if they thought what we were feeling was not real feelings like in real life? I am not sold on the transference thing especially since some of us know a lot about our therapist. In fact more than you might know than going on like the 3rd or 4th date with someone. Plus I think our T's are being who they are, maybe we only see the good side, but isn't that how all of us are when we meet someone for the first time? When you date someone you really don't know who they really are and everything about them at first. I think transference is just a label for our feelings to make them less real for the therapist. Feelings are feelings to me. I think oh, you are just attracted to your T , because you need a daddy is bull puckey. I guess I am just not sold on the transference theory yet. Sorry guys, I know I am being stubborn about this.
Posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 15:57:29
In reply to Transference Sucks, posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 15:00:32
Not every man is inwardly hostile to me. They don't all want to love/destroy me.
I need a therapist, don't I?
A woman, right? Someone who doesn't automatically have it in for me. A woman who could care less that I'm another woman, the potential Other. Someone who has a better than fair chance of helping me. So I need to do that. I’ll be having to get back into therapy again. I’ll need to commit, seriously, to being the person I want to be, because I spout babble about being mature, loving, and open. When many times, in fact, with my therapist, a male, I was hostile, angry, withdrawn, and judgemental. I didn’t want to be that. I called myself a “cobra”, once, that he was seeing me as this poisonous snake. My sub-conscious is telling me that that is how I think of myself and men, and there may be some truth to that, which was unacceptable to me for a long, long time. To feel the depth of my hostility hurt so much.
Last night, I Spewed into my last therapist’s answering machine. I called at least a dozen times, and I cried, and I raged, and I just sat and listened, sometimes just saying enough stream of consciousness garbage to keep the machine going. Crap that I knew sounded stupid, and childish, and immature. I wanted not to care that I was being so selfish, and sounding crass and crazy, stupid and immature .. But it bothers me somewhat to say that I did care, and I do care, what he thinks about me. I cared from first sight of him, and that bothers me very much. My vision of him was out of context from the first, and I knew that. And I played into it from the start, from the first visit, I became malicious almost immediately. In my mind only, though, and that would be my subconscious, but peeking through to the surface now and again. I became verbally violent, on the telephone, to his machine, his answering machine, I said things that were Not Nice. And I made sure, somewhere before I started that, that I was being vulnerable. That he was seeing me as a vulnerable person. Not just a person, but, specifically, female. Not even woman, really. Just vulnerable femininity. I enjoyed the feeling, I rolled in it like a pig in mud. Then, I think I created the reality. I made myself feel as if my life depended on his goodwill.
Posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 16:00:25
In reply to Re: Transference Sucks, posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 15:42:43
Happyflower, what you're saying is good food for thought. I'm going to ruminate (MOO!) over this for a while, and get back to you, because I've thought the same thing, but now I have this glimpse of what really goes on, from my subconscious, and it's working with me. I'll never know the true story, I don't think we ever really one hundred percent understand what goes on in any human relationship.
Posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 18:04:54
In reply to Re: Transference Sucks, posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 15:42:43
Then they say you can't have a successful relationship with them because the balance is not equal. Please show me a relationship this is of equal power. Bull puckey!
Maybe my therapist has power in the therapy room, but outside the room, if given a chance, he would lose all that power! Besides, aren't we really the one in power in the room. We deceide what we say, and do and if we want to leave we can, they can't make us do anything.
lol Just give me one night, and I would have my T on his knees begging for more! lol Tell me then who is the most powerful! lol Men are only more powerful if we LET them!
I do see why most people shouldn't be with there T's. But I think with a mentally stable client if both were interested in each other, it should be an option. I don't think my T is any more intellegent or mentally stable than me. Yes, he is helping me with my problems, but so can a husband, and a friend.
I know I am probabably going to get blasted, but it is what I think. I think the idea of transference is a joke. If anything it is just a "tool" for them to use to think what we are feeling torwards them isn't real and when I mean real, I mean like in everyday life. I feel it is something that they can hide behind to be more objective in order to save their butts. JMHO.
Posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 18:21:47
In reply to Power differences, yeah right, posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 18:04:54
Oh boy, what did I start! I am on fire! My T is in big trouble this Wed. lol
Posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 18:25:16
In reply to Re: Transference Sucks, posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 15:42:43
Posted by Jazzed on June 11, 2005, at 22:51:30
In reply to Transference Sucks, posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 15:00:32
> I'm in transference with every male I see.
> Intellectually I understand that the feelings are my problem, I understand that I have big problems. I've had two major relationships with my life, three counting my therapist, because that was a relationship too, of a certain type. In those three the transference was really strong, I became superlatively insecure and tortured.
> I mean, really tortured. To the point where I was, this last time, Superbitch.
I'm not sure I understand, are you in love with your T? If so, does he know you love him? (Sorry if I should know this.) So when you called his answering machine, what way did you want him to respond to you? Did you want him to call you back? Did you want him to end therapy? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I'm really trying to understand what you want, or if you don't want anything from him anymore. Are you considering leaving him and switching to a female T? I think it helps. I fall in love with every male therapist, but never have with the females, just never occured to me to have feelings for them.I know "transference" is painful, and I know how much it sucks. I really think the only way over it is getting away, and not seeing them, although no one in love with someone wants to hear that or do that, not me either. I had to do that awhile ago, didn't see him, and eventually I got over him, but it was painful. I agree with happyflower, I think transference was something freud came up with a long time ago to protect the Ts, make the client be the hysterical one, and the T be the logical one. I have racked my brain trying to think of who my transference could be for, and there's only one explaination, a lover. Not a past lover in my life, just a new, interesting, fantasy lover. If the T is good, they give you so much of what an ideal lover would, so why wouldn't you fall in love? Just my opinion.
Jazzed
Posted by pinkeye on June 12, 2005, at 12:28:28
In reply to Transference Sucks, posted by Susan47 on June 11, 2005, at 15:00:32
From my experience transference is quite true. I DID project my father's relationship onto my ex T and in fact to all men I met so far.. to a very huge extent.
And more towards my ex T, because I didn't know him all that well, and that didn't give me a chance to see him for what he was.
Not to say that there are no genuine feelings and affection, but that a huge major portion of it was projection from my side in different ways.
Now that I have recovered from it, I am seeing things in a totally different light. I understand why my ex T was indifferent, (it used to bother me so very much, now it doesn't bother me all that much). Why I felt so abandoned, why I kept looking for some approval from him, why I felt terrorized at leaving him. All that was mostly a projection from the confusing role my father had in my life. I think Freud was very right.
Now I like my ex T as a person, but I don't have that crazy dependance and attachmnt and neediness and taking everything he said and did very personally etc. I like him more like an equal - like how I view my colleagues, and other friends. But I magnified his influence 1000 times more when I was in therapy with him.
But you have to stick to the process and get help from some qualified therapist and work thourhg your transference - actually you have to work more about your father from what I learnt.
Posted by Susan47 on June 12, 2005, at 14:29:09
In reply to Power differences, yeah right, posted by happyflower on June 11, 2005, at 18:04:54
Oh, your post made me laugh, the image of having the power reversal like that, with the T on his knees begging for more .. what fun! I love it. And the thing about it is, I would be dressed in heels and stockings and garters and loving every minute of it ... Hah! Oh, yes. I have those fantasies too ... and I believe, I really do, that they're no smarter or more stable or anything else, than most of us. But they are interested in the psyche. And that's just so incredibly sexy, to be interested like that; therapists really have the advantage in the therapeutic relationship, partly because they know more about what they're hearing and observing in the room than we do .. a therapist also has the advantage because, no matter how bright or observant or educated he is, or how well he actually does his job in there, just be virtue of his position he is opening you up to yourself.. he's the tool you're using, and a tool can do both good and harm. Witness the carpenter hammering his thumb instead of the nail, the guy on the saw who cuts off his fingers .. they do have the advantage because of the tools they have access to. And they also have the ability to mis-use their tools. But in this case, it isn't their own fingers they're cutting off, it's their client's. But, I don't know how often that actually happens.
And therapists are sexy to a lot of people, because I think they're seen as a bit fearless, you know .. but I don't necessarily think that's true all the time.
I've been doing some reading, you know, and I have a couple of questions, I'm going to post them on social I suppose, because they're really that kind of question they don't belong here. But I wonder if anyone will reply, people don't like me much here lately, I guess that has to be okay with me, but I know I've been selfish and some might say harsh, and rude too. Sigh. Do you ever wish you were a bit more gentle, and loving? Balanced, I guess.
Posted by Susan47 on June 12, 2005, at 14:42:13
In reply to Re: Transference Sucks » Susan47, posted by Jazzed on June 11, 2005, at 22:51:30
> I'm not sure I understand, are you in love with your T? If so, does he know you love him?
Well, of course he knows. That's part of the transference, it's so obvious. So is the anger. Maybe even the sexual attraction. ALthough, imagining it to my father is really incredibly yuck. A huge violation of my private person. Imagining sex with the therapist, this gorgeous yummy ultra-luscious brown-eyed piece of candy, that was different. That was really gratifying. But I couldn't imagine it if I didn't create the feeling that he wanted me too.. so I tried to create that feeling, this is awful, terrible, but I tried to create it with .. my voice. I never wanted to actually seduce him, but I wanted to feel like I could. Because that made me feel so GOOD. But that transference, I think I'm transferring that not from a parent but from a young adult relationship, the disappointment of the first sexy love gone sour.
I think that answers your answering machine question.
Of course I wanted him to call me back, but if he did I would've been mortified. Caught in the act.
Of course, I do have to see a female, I suppose. I wish it weren't necessary. I'm working full-time right now in a new job and I can't do that for probably a few months. That's really frustrating. And I don't know what type of therapy to go for, etc etc, I've been to see someone three times this year I have a limit on what is covered by my health plan, it's tough, you know. I have to maintain, just keep doing what I'm doing, trying to stay reasonably happy.
Posted by Jazzed on June 13, 2005, at 8:34:23
In reply to Re: Transference Sucks, posted by Susan47 on June 12, 2005, at 14:42:13
I'm sorry Susan, sometimes you have to beat me over the head to get me to understand! I didn't mean to offend, I really didn't know if your feelings were feelings of love because when I fall in love I tend to get super anxious and try to fight that and be happy and fun. I know it manifests itself in all of us in different ways.I don't believe for one second that transference means a desire to have sex with your father. You're right, that's just icky, and anyone who would suggest that should have their head examined, I mean it just makes no sense whatsoever, conscious or unconscious. I do agree that we can transfer feelings for a lover, not neccessarily one we've ever had. This happened to me with someone, not a T, but the same kind of thing, another adult I couldn't have. I desired him, I wanted a fantasy, not an affair.
I agree, thinking that we appeal to another person on a sexual level feels great. Not just Ts, but any man we find attractive. For some reason that forbidden person (the T) is even more tempting because they're off limits, and if they were to develop feelings for us then that would feel really incredible and powerful. After all they're only human, who's to say that there's no way they will develop feelings. Acting on them and feeling them are completely different.
I know what you mean about needing to see a female. I should see a female T. I've chosen all female docs for other stuff, just so my feelings don't come into play. But, for therapy I want a man, I"m more comfortable with a man, I want to be helped and comforted by a man, and I know I'll fall in love if he's kind and caring, which is a pain because then I'll have to get over it eventually.
Good luck with finding someone.
Jazzed
Posted by JenStar on June 13, 2005, at 14:40:55
In reply to Re: Power differences, yeah right » happyflower, posted by Susan47 on June 12, 2005, at 14:29:09
Susan,
I don't think people have stopped liking you! For one, I still like you. :) It seems like you've been posting less, lately. And I felt like I was just not able to give you any useful advice. But I still enjoy reading your posts & interacting with you here!JenStar
Posted by Susan47 on June 14, 2005, at 23:54:27
In reply to Re: Power differences, yeah right » Susan47, posted by JenStar on June 13, 2005, at 14:40:55
Good, I do feel a bit better.. I scare myself at times, I'll admit it.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Psychology | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.