Posted by vwoolf on July 28, 2004, at 9:40:28
I thought I should share an insight I reached a few days ago. I had been writing to Babble about whether to stay in therapy with my therapist or to move to my psychiatrist for whom I felt overwhelmingly strong feelings. I took the posts and showed them to my therapist, and suddenly I realised what I had been saying.
I had written the following:
“After two or three days of respite, during which time I thought I had managed to come to terms with my transference issues and had opted to try and forget about the problem, all my desperate longings for my Pdoc have returned in full strength. Once again I feel completely swamped by yearning.
“I know that for many this feeling is mixed with romantic and sexual longings, but I don’t think this is so in my case. At least, I don’t think it is. I have imagined him naked with an erection, but not in a sexual way – it’s more like a sense of him being completely open. The feeling is rather of wanting to be contained emotionally by him – a very small place from when I was a little girl. It is a feeling of devastating loneliness, which he seems to be able to dissipate when I am near him. I don’t dream of knowing him outside therapy at all, or wanting to be in any way involved in his life – I just want to know that my space with him is safe. I feel vulnerable and hurt knowing I can’t see him. So why do I feel so guilty about this?”It was definitely a place from when I was very little. Some history - my mother was very uncaring towards me as a child and neglected me emotionally. My father gave me the love and admiration I needed, but at a price. He wanted sexual pleasure in return. What I was writing about in my post was the desperate feeling of loneliness I felt, and the need to attract my father physically to free myself of that despair and get the love I so desperately wanted. I was transfering this need onto my Pdoc, and would have done anything to attract and seduce him to take away the pain. Even though I felt it was not sexual, my image of his nakedness and erection clearly show that I was wanting him to be attracted, even sexually. This is something I have repeated on several occasions in my life, and has led me to being sexually molested by a psychiatrist who did not have the understanding to see that I was reliving my pain and abandonment in trying to seduce him, or the integrity to stop me from hurting myself again.
Understanding this has helped me moved forward in my choices. I am now determined to stay in therapy with my female T, since I think that the worst pain I suffer is from my mother’s neglect, rather than my father’s incestuous behaviour. I am sure I will still feel yearnings for my pdoc from time to time, but I think I will be able to control them better now that I have some understanding of what they mean to me. I think I will now be able to start trusting my T more, after seeing how determinedly she has stayed with me through all this violent turmoil. Thanks to those of you who replied to my messages with sound, careful advice. It is precious insight I have gained.
poster:vwoolf
thread:371586
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040728/msgs/371586.html