Posted by Dinah on June 27, 2005, at 21:47:08
In reply to Re: Ch 5 - Transference, Not Just for Therapy Anym » pegasus, posted by Dinah on June 22, 2005, at 2:01:33
There were some interesting stories in this chapter.
I must be in the mood to apply everything I read to myself and my therapy. In evaluating the overall message, that ideally therapists will take a middle ground on the concept of shared reality - admitting that while part of how the client reacts is based on their past, they shouldn't discount their own role - I realized how very good my therapist is at walking this line. I don't recall him ever discounting what I've said by calling it transference. He's always willing to admit the role he's played in our interactions. But he might also bring up patterns of behavior on my part, or past experiences, and relate them to what's going on as well. He does that very carefully, I must admit. He says I bite!
I was trying to figure out how much transference plays a role in my interactions with others. How much one or two characteristics might lead me to generalize about a person's entire being, based on prior experience.
I'm not sure that I do it that often with my parents. I don't assume anyone's like my father, in any way that counts. He's rather unique. And I don't *think* I do it much with my mother except with myself. If I see someone violating personal space at a party, I don't generally assume they're likely to swallow someone whole or invade them like my mother would. But if I see myself come anywhere close to violating someone's personal space, I immediately writhe in agony, thinking that I'll be an engulfer and invader like my mother.
I see it more at work with situations. Like, my mother left me at school after kindergarten in the days before aftercare, when you just didn't leave your kids at school. So I'd be sitting there wondering if she'd be a little late (she couldn't help being a little late, because of where she worked) or if she'd be two hours late. And getting angry and perhaps a bit scared. Probably looking around and thinking that I know Mama loves me, but there aren't any other kindergarteners alone in the schoolyard. If Mama really loved me, would she leave me alone? There aren't even any other kids close to kindergarten age in the schoolyard. Just some high school kids. Do their Mamas love them more than mine loves me? But of course she loves me, she can't help it. But... The teachers are gone. They've left to go pick up their little girls. Why hasn't Mama left to go pick up me? And yes it's fun to sit on the vice principal's desk. He doesn't know many kindergarteners by name, but he knows me. But sometimes the office people are close to picking up and going home by the time Mama comes. What will happen if they close the gates? Will they lock me inside or outside?
So when my therapist doesn't know whether or not he's going on vacation until the day before he leaves, I do feel like that little girl sitting on the steps peering down the street, and a lot of those old feelings come back.
So situationally, I think I experience transference.
And also in very closely related situations, I might experience it. I probably experienced some similarities between biofeedback guy and the pdoc from h*ll, and since they were both in the mental health profession and I was in a similar position to both, I probably made a few leaps forward in deciding what biofeedback guy was like, based on what I knew of the pdoc from h*ll.
Babble is another place where it's easy to do that.
I'll confess that I still have trouble with the stories that suggest that therapists fall in love or experience strong sexual attraction to their clients. It's so far outside my experience. I can understand a client falling for a therapist. The situation seems to be perfect for that. But I still can't manage to put my mind around the reverse. A therapist would obviously go into therapy understanding that it would be disastrous to feel anything sexual or romantic towards their clients. I just don't have the appropriate inner resources to concieve of an attraction being strong enough to overcome that. I suppose I can imagine noting an attraction, but I have trouble understanding that it could affect them enough to affect therapy. I'm sure that's a lack in me.
poster:Dinah
thread:491935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050622/msgs/520243.html