Posted by Dinah on September 18, 2004, at 20:24:30
In reply to reality vs fantasay (long), posted by lucy stone on September 18, 2004, at 8:34:31
It sounds as if we're in similar phases of our therapy. I refuse to talk termination. But I perhaps accept that I need the fantasy him more than the real him. It's just that the fantasy him happens to occupy the same space. :) And has the same really soothing voice. He's going away, only for a week. And he'll probably offer to let me call him, and I'll probably ask if he doesn't. But I feel more confidence in my ability to handle whatever crops up while he's gone without breaking down. I feel more confident that while I might feel bad short term, it's not going to last forever, and I can live through it.
I used to use the imagery of my being the blind pup to my therapist's milky mother dog. And that I had that blind pup's steady beeline progress to mom. It's interesting to watch a baby pup temporarily separated from Mom. He'll cry but determinedly make his way to where he can sense her warmth or smell her smell. It's astonishing how much strength and single mindedness can be in that little body.
Now, just maybe, I'm a bit older pup. Exploring my immediate surroundings and coming back to Mom to get a good rough ear licking. Checking around to see where Mom is if she leaves the litterbox for a while, but relaxing if I see she's in sight (or internalized sufficiently perhaps).
I refuse to entertain the possibility that I may one day leave Mom, never to return. Maybe I'll leave the litterbox. And maybe I'll go out and hunt and play on my own. But I'd like to be able to plop down next to Mom for a soothing rest once and again. Dogs seem to know their pups long after they grow up, and I often see related dogs piling up in a heap.
But perhaps our therapists handled the earlier stages differently. Mine was willing to be the good enough mother in many ways. And willing to work with my anger on those inevitable occasions when he wasn't quite good enough. I honor him for this, especially since long term transferance based therapy isn't his main focus. I even think he prefers the shorter CBT work he generally does. I think the intensity of my transference bothered him, but he did the work he needed to do to do what I needed him to do.
I always think of transference as being a sort of Chinese finger pull toy. The more I fight it in myself, the harder a hold it has on me. The more my therapist pulls back, the tighter I'm sucked in. Even third parties trying to drag me away binds me more firmly. But if the resistance is taken away, the hold is lessened. Until one day you see that you can step away any time you wish to. By fully entering the process, you speed it up. By trying to keep one foot safely on the ground, you mess it all up. Our efforts to keep safe don't equal safety. It's giving up our efforts that lead to safety. (Like bikeriding maybe? I always rode too slow and wobbled.)
All that of course depends on a decent, ethical, and competent professional being on the other side of the transference process. I'm afraid we've seen far too many lacking in ethics or competence for me to say it's *always* wise to toss caution to the wind and throw yourself into the process.
poster:Dinah
thread:392271
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040918/msgs/392426.html