Posted by crushedout on January 28, 2004, at 8:03:54
I've been reading a really interesting book that's been making me feel so good about my transference stuff, I hope for the right reasons.It's by Florence Rosiello and it's called "Deepening Intimacy in Psychotherapy: Using the Erotic Transference and Countertransference." The author is pretty wild and out there, but impressively honest. She admits to a lot of erotic feelings toward her patients and describes how they can be useful to the process.
I think it's helping me in several ways. One is that I'm realizing, or imagining, that I'm not alone in my feelings for my T, i.e., I'm imagining that she longs for me in some ways, too, and that's comforting. (Maybe I'm deluding myself, but I think I may be a least partially right. In any case, it doesn't really matter whether it's true, I guess.)
Another way it's helping is it's making me see how the transference can be helpful, just to bring us closer, build trust between us, which will ultimately facilitate my therapy, I suppose. I mean, even if she doesn't long for me the way I do for her, she's admitted to me that my feelings for her make her feel good, so my sharing them with her can only bring us closer.
All that said, I have a question. As some of you may remember, I gave my T a romantic CD around Christmastime, and then she gave me one back, which she regretted doing. I've since made her another one and I really want to give it to her. This CD-giving feels like a useful dialogue to me, kind of a way for me to express things to her that are hard to say in person, almost like giving her journal-writing or something. I'm not saying I think she should continue reciprocating the CD-giving, and I don't think she will, but is it a bad idea for me to give her what will now be a THIRD CD???
I suppose I will ask her this, too, but I just wanted to get your take on it.
By the by, I asked her yesterday whether she would consider terminating me because of my transference stuff (an issue that came up from the links Joslynn posted in response to Karen Kay's recent issue with her T's fantasies), and she basically said, "not on your life." That was good to hear.
poster:crushedout
thread:306341
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040123/msgs/306341.html