Posted by bob on May 13, 2000, at 14:28:25
In reply to Re: I beg to differ ..., posted by Noa on May 13, 2000, at 12:58:42
From Kay's original post:
SO, HOW ABOUT IT? Do the rest of you guys know your therapist's family, hobbies, likes/dislikes in books, music, cars, animals?It sounds like folks are taking "knowing" someone "socially" to all different heights ... certainly far beyond knowing what books your therapist reads.
Bringing up transference here -- well, my apologies if I offend anyone by this, but I'm no fan of Freud -- is really quite amusing. On the one hand, analysts are to maintain this objective, professional distance. On the other, it is expected that the analysand is going to be transferring their emotions from other relationships onto the analyst. Sounds like a catch-22 to me. At one level, you're not expected to be "socially acquainted" while, at the same time, at another level you need to be "intimately acquainted". If you're trying to deal with issues where you've got nothing but "inappropriate emotional responses" from things you've done, transferring that to someone else who's just going to toss back "So how does that make you feel?" at you seems like you're still not getting an appropriate emotional response.
I imagine that such role-play does some good for some folks out there. And from others have described here, I can see why you may need some space between you and your therapists ... particularly if you socialize with them outside of your sessions.
I, for one, am much happier knowing enough about my therapist to be unable of projecting any of my prior relationships onto her. None of them fit her very well.
cheers,
bob
poster:bob
thread:33299
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000508/msgs/33373.html