Posted by Tamar on June 23, 2005, at 6:05:10
In reply to Re: Confusing Session (long) » Daisym, posted by daisym on June 22, 2005, at 23:52:12
> <<<<OK, that is a HUGE question for me -- how DO you know whether you've fallen in love or not? I've been "married" to my husband since I was 18. I had one serious boyfriend before that and we went as far as kissing. (poor guy) I had a few other dates, but I drank my way through my senior year of high school so I don't remember much about them. I think the summer between high school and college was the only time I "experimented" sexually, but only when I'd been drinking ALOT. Let's just say that I usually kept all of my clothes on...As far as I can tell, falling in love is about having powerful loving feelings combined with intense sexual attraction. And that’s what erotic transference feels like to me; it’s just the same as falling in love. Maybe it *is* the same. When I fell in love with my husband I knew very little about him; when I got to know him I came to love him in a more realistic way (I mean that I discovered he had faults and I loved him anyway). I think getting to know someone can transform those initial feelings into a more stable, less overwhelming feeling of love as the relationship progresses.
When I was younger I experimented sexually a lot. I didn’t fall in love with all my partners, but I loved most of them as friends. I have fallen in love a few times in my life: with two boyfriends before my husband, and then with my husband.
My therapist was the first person I fell in love with who was off-limits. However, I did fall in love with a man a few years ago, and he loved me too, but we didn’t want to have an affair because we were both married. So we were close friends instead. And although I wanted very much to tear off his clothes I would never have done it in real life because I knew it would lead to feelings of guilt that would have ended the friendship. I think of my feelings for my therapist in a similar way. Perhaps I could have tried to seduce him, but if he’d been willing it would have meant the end of the therapeutic aspect of the relationship, and I didn’t want to compromise the good thing I had for a couple of hours of sex. And of course I knew his boundaries were good and he’d never do it.
> <<<<<The rejection things is a huge part of this. Having these feelings has triggered off the list of the things I don't like about myself physically, stuff I've always hated as well as stuff I thought I'd gotten OK with. In my head, I'm telling myself that part of the reason it isn't OK to have these feelings is that he deserves to have some sweet, beautiful young thing offer herself, that this is ludicrous that I would even think that he would be attracted to me. (Not that I think he is, but when I try to figure out what I want, part of that is him caring about me, more than the client stuff, and I don't think he does/could because I'm not attractive enough. Does that make any sense?) I guess it feels very egotistical and presumptuous.
That makes perfect sense to me. I felt that if my therapist were to get involved with a client, he could do better than me; that I wasn’t attractive enough to be noticed; that he would be repulsed by all my physical flaws. Then I realised that (for me anyway) that feeling of being unattractive is very deep and very old. And it’s not just about sexual desire; I imagine that people might not want to be friends with me because I’m not attractive enough.
The odd thing is that I don’t actually seem to have any difficulty attracting men, despite my obvious defects. I’ve had plenty of partners… Possibly the reason I was such a bike in my youth was a need to have my desirability validated. And of course, it didn’t really work because there was always a part of me that assumed men were intimate with me simply because I was available and not because they were attracted to me…
But the other thing was that I came to understand that my physical appearance wasn’t stopping me from being sexually intimate with my therapist. The thing that was stopping me was the therapeutic boundaries. Strangely enough, that knowledge actually makes me feel better about myself. I am free to imagine that perhaps he would have loved to get it on with me in different circumstances. And maybe there’s more to attraction than a ‘perfect’ body; I think men as well as women are interested in their partner’s character and personality. The same goes for caring in non-sexual ways.
> >>>>>OUCH. I'm sorry things happened this way. I did tell my therapist that I was worried that he would tell me he needed me to see someone else, that he couldn't cope with my feelings. I guess I'm lucky, when I skirt issues, he will help me bring them out. When I skirt questions though, he won't answer unless asked straight out.
There are some therapists who can’t cope with these feelings. However, I really think your therapist can. Not only does he anticipate intense feelings, he also seems to have the perceptiveness and experience to deal with them. It’s great that he helps you bring out issues.
> >>>>>>I'm sure you are probably right about his theoretical orientation. But since you didn't know that at the time, I'm sure it was painful. It must have gotten in the way for a while. I too believe I'm untouchable but it is because I think I'm scary. I guess I think he thinks that if he touches me, I'll REALLY have transference. That story about the woman who was needy about her hugs and her therapist labeled her greedy really sticks with me. I think I'm emotionally taxing enough.
Yeah, that story about the needy woman with the hugs resonated with me too. Have you talked to your therapist about touching? I was very struck by your feeling that his touch could induce transference. I can imagine you might feel very afraid of the intensity of feeling that touch could provoke in you, and very afraid of his possible reaction. I’m not saying I think you should touch him, but I wonder if it could be useful to you to talk about what touching might be like. (I don’t want to scare you… But nevertheless, I think he might have some useful things to say.)
> >>>>>>I want to wail at you, "HOW DO YOU KNOW HE IS NEVER GOING TO BE OVERWHELMED?"...sorry, didn't mean to shout.
Sorry. I will admit immediately that I’m not omniscient! But from everything you’ve posted about him, it seems abundantly clear that he is educated, experienced and professional. It is true that some therapists can feel overwhelmed when dealing with clients whose stories are severely troubling. But from what I’ve read, that usually happens when therapists are not experienced enough to know how to explore their feelings for the client and their countertransference reactions. It sounds as if your therapist knows how to take care of himself (perhaps with supervision or something similar, and perhaps by having the emotional maturity to distinguish between your feelings and his). He seems to tell you that he can hear and accept anything you are able to tell say. It may be difficult to believe him, especially if you feel that your emotions are too challenging for most people, but fortunately he isn’t most people. I guess it’s a matter of continuing to test him whenever you need to.
> >>>>>>I guess the adult feelings are more confusing because there is this element of pride that comes into play. I felt kind of silly when I first felt these little kid feelings with him so intensely but I can accept the idea of regression and I can even accept that it is useful. But what could possibly be useful about arousal occurring in therapy? I don't have a clue what it means or what I'm supposed to learn from it. I think it is scary to be honest about this because I don't like surprises and I have no idea where these feelings are leading.
I don’t like surprises either! And I can understand why you ask what could possibly be useful about arousal in therapy. I think the short answer is that therapy is a safe place to explore what arousal means to you.
> >>>>>>I know this is really personal, and I completely understand if you decline to answer, but I'd like to know what they meant to you. Because I don't even have "X" to start with. How did you work through these feelings? In the middle of the night I am usually very, very honest with myself. I think I know what I've felt and I can sort of label things but I can't get a handle on why things are changing. And why are they changing into this?! Of all people, you would think I would know better than to offer someone this kind of information about me, to potentially use against me.
I don’t mind answering at all. It took a long time to work through the feelings but I think I know now what’s going on. I wrote everything down and tried to explore all the possibilities. It took several months to be thoroughly honest about some of it; I kept touching on it and then backing away. But eventually I think it made some sense.
When I was seeing my therapist I spent a lot of time talking about being raped when I was a teenager. I realised that starting to talk about it had coincided with the beginnings of the erotic transference but I didn’t know what the connection was. Surely if I were going to experience transference connected with the attack it should be negative transference? That would have made sense to me. But there I was, stuck with nasty shameful erotic transference. I came to the conclusion that the most likely connection was about my body’s betrayal in responding to the assault. And I think of it all in a rather counter-intuitive way: the feelings I transferred to my therapist were feelings about what my attackers didn’t do, rather than what they did do. They didn’t give me any real sexual pleasure; they only gave me physiological arousal. They didn’t arouse me in a context of safety and joy; they contextualized my arousal with fear and disgust and shame. They didn’t see me as a real person; they objectified me. They weren’t interested my potential as a lover and they didn’t want me to give them real sexual pleasure; they wanted to get off on their power over me.
So I think I wanted to retell the story with my therapist and rewrite it. I wanted him to take their place and change the story; I wanted him not just to arouse me but to give me pleasure, and I wanted him to enjoy the pleasure I could give him. I felt the safety of the therapeutic frame and I wanted to experience sexual intimacy in that safe space. I wanted him to want *me*. I wanted to feel like a woman with a man.
I think I started to realize what was going on when a fantasy popped into my head one day when I was driving home from work. It was a fantasy of sex with my therapist and another man I knew. Until that moment I couldn’t possibly have imagined any fantasy of a threeway with two men; it was just too triggering. But instead of putting it out of my mind I gave it some space and surprisingly enough it did go some way towards rewriting the story. In fact it was probably more effective at rewriting the story than real sex with my real therapist could ever be.
There was some other stuff as well… (This is embarrassing… much blushing…) One thing in particular was that I developed a very phallic conception of therapeutic safety. I had a kind of fantasy that my therapist had a safe penis. Thinking about it had a kind of calming influence on me. I know, I’m really nuts! But even that was useful to think about, because I came to realize that I’m a bit frightened of male genitalia. And whenever I think of a penis I imagine it ready for action, whereas in reality most of them spend most of their time asleep.
Realizing all those things helped some, and also led me to begin to acknowledge some earlier abuse in my childhood, which I’m currently keeping in a small box on a high shelf. I’ll get to it some day if I ever get around to doing long term therapy. Until then, I can contain it without it hurting too much.
I still have a strong sexual attraction for my therapist, which isn’t too surprising because the man is HOT! And I still experience some of the erotic transference. These things seem to continue after termination, at least for me. But I don’t find any of it overwhelming or shameful any more.
I don’t know if that’s any help with your situation. I know it’s quite different. But the question of why your feelings are changing in this way is clearly an important one. My impression is that for people with a history of sexual assault or abuse it’s extremely common to experience some degree of erotic transference. Or at least, it can be helpful to experience these feelings. I think it happens because there’s such a huge emotional conflict between how things were and how things could have been different, if that makes sense. I thought about how a counter-intuitive approach to csa might look, but I’m uneasy about posting it because it might be too triggering. If you want me to, though, I’ll post it.
> Thanks for the long post. I really want to "talk" about this as I struggle to understand it. I hope you don't mind all the questions.
I don’t mind at all. Talking helps me too!
poster:Tamar
thread:516928
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050622/msgs/517443.html