Posted by shrinking violet on August 14, 2004, at 12:49:07
Hi everyone,
I'll try my best to make this post cohesive and reasonable, but my thoughts/feelings are a bit all over the place on this topic (so be forewarned).
The main point of this post is to figure out if our relationships/feelings for our T's (and theirs for us) can truly be genuine and more than client/T, or if it always falls under transference/counter-transference, or some sort of therapeutic technique by the part of the therapist, etc.
I met my T last summer. It's the first time I've ever been in therapy, so I don't have any past experiences with which to compare. She's a LICSW at my University's counseling center. Right away I liked her: she isn't too old/young (she's 48, I'm 31), and she seemed to be genuinely nice and easy-going. As time went on, she says she has grown to care about me, she says that our relationship is unique, and that she rarely has this kind of relationship with a client. I've grown to care very much for her as a person (not just someone to whom I tell all of my crap). She's intelligent, nurturing, witty, patient, open, determined. When I try to discount our relationship, or deny that it's "real," or suggest she's using a technique, she says that those comments are hurtful to her.
We've never talked about our relationship in any great detail; she brought it up last week by asking where the connection(s) in my life are. I told her I didn't have any (which is true...I feel very disconnected from everyone and life in general, and I've lost the few friends I did have, and my family (well, anyone really) are so completely clueless as to who I am and I feel so far from them that I may as well be on Mars). She said that wasn't true, that if I admitted it, we (she and I) have a connection. I tried to blow it off, saying it wasn't real. She disagreed. She said just b/c we can't go for coffee or the movies makes me "throw away what we do have." I told her that wasn't true, exactly (I don't necessarily *want* or think about going out with her socially. It would be nice, true, but I don't think about it).
So I'm majorly confused.....I know that our relationship (whatever that means) is so confusing for me because I DO feel very close to her....but is it because we as two people just happen to "click" and would have done so in any other context, or is it because she's my therapist (and someone -- the first person-- I've ever let myself share this much with) or because it's some transference issue (although I'm not sure what I'd be transferring from since I've never felt quite this way with/about anyone), or is it because she's manipulating the situation and trying to get me to feel close to her so, theoretically, I'll seek similar outside relationships?
It's rather maddening.
Especially because when I leave her office, it HURTS. I don't have anyone or anything else I'm connected to at all. Before I met her, I knew I was alone and isolated and alienated, etc, but I had nothing else to compare it to. Now, because I feel connected and close to her as a person, it hurts all the more when I leave.
I feel like just the fact that she's my T, and reading about how often this kind of phenomenon pops up between clients and their T's, that it's automatically artificial and I shouldn't even let myself think that I'm anything more to her than someone who sits in her chair (and vice versa). But it doesn't *feel* that way, and there's the rub. When I think about her, I don't think the woman is even capable of deceit. The way she is during sessions is the way she is outside of session (from what she's told me, and I do think that's true); she doesn't put on a "therapist persona," she isn't distant or cold. She has boundaries but, to be honest, it feels like she lets me cross them, and maybe she's crossed some herself (although that's speculation....the whole concept is rather subjective to me). I know that I can hurt her with my anger, and I have theories about some of her own issues.....things I shouldn't know or be aware of, maybe, but that might also show how genuine she can be.
I see her Tuesday, and as hard as it is I'm going to try to bring this up (I've hinted at it before in journals or angry letters, but usually I question it or tell her right out I think it's bullsh*t). I'm kind of afraid to talk about it though, b/c what if it causes her to push away or treat me differently (she accuses me of always pushing her away, and that's true, but I feel I need to protect myself)?
Has anyone questioned their relationship with their T's? How do you know if it's tranference, or something the T is doing, or if it's genuine? Or can it never be genuine?
Has anyone actually discussed it with their T's? How did it go?Thank you in advance for ANY thoughts, advice, experiences (and I apologize if this topic has been talked about to death, as I'm assuming it has...).
-SV
poster:shrinking violet
thread:377579
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040812/msgs/377579.html