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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 18:46:44
I have begun thinking that this whole phenomena of attraction and falling in love and thinking of another person as soul mate, and I can't live without you kind of thing and obsessing about any person is more about transference than it is anything real.
For instance, I am highly likely to get attracted to any indian guy compares to a chinese guy.. isn't that also transference? I can potentially say a chinese guy I work with is actually a better guy than an indian guy.. and I really might think highly of a chinese guy than an indian guy. But still, I would be more tempted to fall in love only with an indian and not with the chinese (I am just taking chinese as an example - no offense meant).
Isn't it all about how you have been conditioned throughout your life?
If we are all supposed to not act on transference, we should really be able to fall in love with any good person. Not restricted to race/or religion..
So I think the whole concept of "Oh. it is just transference" Or it is all about your past or it all your projection or it is all about your unfulfilled childhood desires or it is all your longing for your dad is not really that true is it?
Posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 18:57:46
In reply to Getting Attracted/Falling in love - transference?, posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 18:46:44
When two people fall head over heals in love with each other, without understanding each other that much, it is thought of as highly a good thing - "Love at first sight", "Made for Each Other" "Soul Mates" etc. When it doesn't work, it is called transference, "blind leap of faith", "sexual attraction" etc.
If you choose someone who resembles your father, and if it works out and makes you happy, then it is supposed to be a very great thing - that you had a solid role model. If you choose someone who resembles your father and if it doesn't work out - then it is branded as unresolved chidhood conflict, projecting, repeating the abuse..
The ingredient in everything is the same.. but depending on the outcome, we either analyze it and lable it and try to recover from it, or we enjoy it.
I know a couple where both of them are like kids.. they call themselves as kids, and they play with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck toys, and collect Barbie dolls, and watch only cartoons - but people thought of them as ideal couple and made for each other. Nobody though they are in arrested development stage. In fact, I fell in love with that guy myself - he was my first love though he was married. Now I realize maybe I was myself just reacting to my childish aspects and seeing that in him made me like him.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 23, 2005, at 19:01:57
In reply to Getting Attracted/Falling in love - transference?, posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 18:46:44
> I have begun thinking that this whole phenomena of attraction and falling in love and thinking of another person as soul mate, and I can't live without you kind of thing and obsessing about any person is more about transference than it is anything real.
Ah. The western ideal of 'romantic love' is actually a fairly recent discovery / creation. Our culture puts high value on strong feelings of attraction and 'being in love' which seems to mean something like a happy high when you are around them.
But... In my experience that experience is fleeting. At the whim of who knows what. I think novelty is a huge part of it. When you don't know so very much about someone and nothing you know about them bugs you / turns you off or whatever it can be so easy to just assume that all the rest of them will be like that too. But as we get to know them a little more we find that there isn't really any such thing as the perfect person for us.
I reckon... That 'love' (in the sense of romantic love) is more like friendship. But with an attraction that you probably don't feel for all your friends.
It is like how some friendships can be whirlwind affairs. You do everything together and tell each other everything and it goes great for a time. But it can be too intense and ultimately unsustainable. I think love can be like that too...
But love that is based on friendship and companionship and awareness and acceptance that your partner isn't your perfect partner in every respect - maybe they don't put the toilet seat down or maybe you can't talk to them about all of your feelings or whatever... But that kind of love is more a committment to companionship and that is capable of lasting.
Whereas the former... Well... I know the story is meant to go that one gets whisked away and lives happily (in that state) ever after. But... I think the endorphins or whatever run out eventually... The idealisation runs out eventually... And then... Without friendship / companionship what is left?????
I think of the latter as proper love.
The former is more likely to be transference.
We don't choose who we are attracted to in the former sense. We don't choose when the feeling comes, and we don't choose when the feeling goes either.But then... This is probably more about me than you and so I'm probably talking out of my *ss...
Posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 19:09:14
In reply to Re: Getting Attracted/Falling in love - transference? » pinkeye, posted by alexandra_k on June 23, 2005, at 19:01:57
IF something works and if the marriage is good, then we just term it as an ideal love - even though they might have just married after 3 months of knowing each other.
If another couple married each other after 3 months of knowing each other and the marriage ends badly, then it is termed as transference or infatuation..
IF I married someone like my fahter and it worked well, it is not a bad thing at all.. If I married someone like my father and it didn't work, then it is bad and my psychology has to be analyzed to the depth to cure me..
Same thing applies to everything ... IF some guy quits a well paying job and pursues an impossible dream and makes millions out of it, then he is branded as a genuis. If the same guy pursues an impossible dream and ends up being not successful, he is branded as being "living in a dreamland" and he needs to have his head examined and needs to go through years of therapy.
Really it is all about the outcome.
Posted by alexandra_k on June 23, 2005, at 19:09:32
In reply to When it works love, when it doesn't transference:) » pinkeye, posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 18:57:46
> When two people fall head over heals in love with each other, without understanding each other that much, it is thought of as highly a good thing - "Love at first sight", "Made for Each Other" "Soul Mates" etc.
Does that really happen IRL???
How often???
I think that if it works out for them then it has more to do with luck than anything else...
How many of those types of relationships end in divorce?
How often does the intense happiness become transformed into intense disapoitment over time?
I guess in western society we are freer to make lifelong committments on the basis of those kinds of feelings because divorce is more accepted.
In cultures where you do not divorce companionship, trustworthiness, etc are valued more highly than that kind of feeling.>When it doesn't work, it is called transference, "blind leap of faith", "sexual attraction" etc.
Yup.
> If you choose someone who resembles your father, and if it works out and makes you happy, then it is supposed to be a very great thing - that you had a solid role model. If you choose someone who resembles your father and if it doesn't work out - then it is branded as unresolved chidhood conflict, projecting, repeating the abuse..Yeah. Maybe the crucial bit is 'resembles your father in what respects?' Maybe your father was a kind and loving man. If so then I don't think it would be pathological to seek out someone with those qualities. If it is more based on appearance then you are taking your chances, though...
> The ingredient in everything is the same.. but depending on the outcome, we either analyze it and lable it and try to recover from it, or we enjoy it.Yeah.
Resemble your father in what respects???
You probably want to keep some of that...
Other aspects you might want to be more cautious of...
Posted by alexandra_k on June 23, 2005, at 19:11:12
In reply to The difference is only what works and what doesn't » alexandra_k, posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 19:09:14
> Same thing applies to everything ... IF some guy quits a well paying job and pursues an impossible dream and makes millions out of it, then he is branded as a genuis. If the same guy pursues an impossible dream and ends up being not successful, he is branded as being "living in a dreamland" and he needs to have his head examined and needs to go through years of therapy.
> Really it is all about the outcome.Yes. I hear you.
Posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 19:52:01
In reply to Re: The difference is only what works and what doesn't, posted by alexandra_k on June 23, 2005, at 19:11:12
For everything in life that is all there is to it. If it works or not ultimately.
If a guy speculates in stocks and makes millions - he was there in the right place at the right time.. If a guy does the same thing and loses millions, he was there in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All these concepts of transference, regression, therapy are all meant to try to fix when something goes wrong.. The same thing, if a patient marries a therapist and lives very happily, then it will be claimed as "just happened to find the love in the wrong place"
If I behave like a child and at the same time good in career, then it is treated as "wonderful - she still retains her innocence and childishness"..In fact people used to envy me for that before - how I used to retain my childishness and innocence in spite of operating in the real world.. But now if it doesn't help me, then people tell me I am regressed.
Posted by antigua on June 24, 2005, at 11:51:08
In reply to Getting Attracted/Falling in love - transference?, posted by pinkeye on June 23, 2005, at 18:46:44
I had an interesting conversation with my Pdoc earlier this spring. I was telling him about how I'd put myself in the position of being retraumatized--I had become attracted to a man who had the traits of my father (in this case, the bad parts)--he was unavailable, not willing to open up, etc. I put myself in a position where I felt he had betrayed me, and the feelings of abandonment and shame that I had experienced with my father were projected onto him. I recognized the retraumatization, and I recognized that I was putting feelings onto him that didn't belong to him, but once I got into it, I was just as hurt and betrayed as I was when I was a kid (csa). Poor guy had nothing to do with it. I knew this intellectually.
This was clearly transferenc, but my Pdoc told me the most fascinating thing. He said that people who are traumatized (to be fair, let's say some, not necessarily all) are drawn to re-experiencing the trauma--he said it's Freud's concept of -- not sure words are exact--"repetetive compulsion". We are drawn to repeat it until it is resolved. It can be why a woman is always drawn to no-good guys who remind them of their father, etc; or always been drawn to unavailable men. I thought we were drawn to them with the hope of having the situation resolved differently (they will finally love us like we want to be loved), but my pdoc said we are drawn to these situations until we resolve the actual conflict. For me, I'm drawn to retraumatize myself until I work through the problems I had with my father. I believe this. I always thought I could make the situation turn out differently (make the guy love me) but that's not going to happen. I think that's the transference too.
Am I making any sense? I thought it was fascinating, and it has helped me understand myself so much better--that I am actually drawn to these situations, they just don't happen to me.
antigua
Posted by antigua on June 24, 2005, at 16:18:43
In reply to Re: Getting Attracted/Falling in love - transference?, posted by antigua on June 24, 2005, at 11:51:08
I didn't finish what I had to say.
This transference happened with a T before, too, when he terminated me. It was terrible, but once I understood my role it helped lessen the pain.
So I think there's a huge difference between falling in love and transference. Or at least I hope so. While I might desperately want the transference type of love, I will never get it because it's not based on real things--or at least for me it's not.
antigua
Posted by pinkeye on June 24, 2005, at 19:30:54
In reply to P.S., posted by antigua on June 24, 2005, at 16:18:43
That is really insightful. I have also been realizing that more and more that I really need to work on the conflicts I had with my father. But I feel that somehow I am not able to progress beyond a point, and I need to experience the same trauma again and again. Maybe that is something that happens as well
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