Posted by Dinah on May 5, 2005, at 2:47:13
In reply to Re: Something that interests me., posted by alexandra_k on May 5, 2005, at 0:04:22
My therapist suggests projection to me a lot of times. He rarely suggests transference, except with regard to abandonment issues sometimes.
If I feel ashamed of something, and then perceive that my therapist is judging me negatively about it, he might suggest that I'm the one who is upset about it, not him. Or if I'm angry at any given therapeutic moment, I might assume he is angry, even if he isn't really. Or be afraid he is angry and ask a million times.
While I admit I occasionally fall victim to transference. I don't think it's a major factor in our therapy. But when, for example, he suddenly tells me that he'll be gone the next week, or more especially when he doesn't know if he'll be there next week and he'll let me know, I get a distinct set of feelings. It feels very much like when I was in kindergarten in the days before schools were so careful. And my mother taught school a distance away. She was always late picking me up, but I'd never know *how* late. It could be fifteen minutes or a half hour, or it could be two hours. I hung around the schoolyard and waited. There was a high school kid who'd hang out with me sometimes, and my vice principal would sometimes let me in his office and talk to me. But mostly I'd be very angry, very uncertain, and a bit scared that this time she wouldn't come.
Those same feelings come up in therapy sometimes. We're getting a lot better at recognizing them and discussing them at the moment.
poster:Dinah
thread:493400
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050504/msgs/493977.html