What would therapy look like if therapist followed this protocol?

As I understand it, attachment is the emotional connection we have to another person, transference is projecting something from the past onto the present with the therapist (so in other words, it's not really about your therapist, it's really about your father or your mother or some other unmet need).

I'm still chatting with a online therapist who thinks I was terminated by my therapist because of this issue. Yes I lied otherwise no one would take me on. I sent him this article and said understanding still does not fix what is broken in me.

Yes, that article you sent accurately describes what you are experiencing. But, as you stated, knowledge does not necessarily equal healing. Given that you have a lot of experience in therapy, as well as good insight into your own issues, do you have any personal ideas on how you will "fix what is so broken in you"?

I sent this to my ex-T I still keep in touch with and he said that I was right, knowing is cognitive and doesn't fix trauma since trauma is in the body....

Still can not figure out how this inferno stops in me.

My understanding is that such intense attachments are inevitably transferences as well, because these early attachment needs are brought alive and transferred to the therapist in the psychotherapy setting. The intensity of these attachment feelings, generally inappropriate and non-typical in normal adult relationships, hints that they originate from an early age and are thus transferences.

Sorry, Moxie. I don’t have it all figured out and am in the thick of it myself right now. I see my very kind, gentle therapist this week after a 2 week break and am terrified. My heart pounds and I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of it. It makes no sense, so it must be transference. Again, I haven’t figured out what to do with it and I feel embarrassed by it, but fortunately my T seems welcoming of my strange, out of proportion reactions.

Therapists who want their clients to be informed about possible harm can simply direct clients to this forum.

In fact, in this very thread people are describing what appear to be traumatic re-enactments, or withdrawal associated with psychological dependence.

It's euphemistically called transference or attachment.

Intensive therapy = first do harm.

I never had any insight into what other people's therapy sessions were like until I came on here recently. When you read the stories on here from a somewhat of a distance having been out of therapy for several years, it truly is horrifying. How did we get to the point in this society where we think this is helpful or productive? The total dependence and obsession with the therapist's opinions is the most notable. The confusion and mixed messages from the therapist, which illustrates how they have no more clue than their patients about what to do to "help" ease whatever the problem /reason was for seeking therapy in the first place. The fact that the therapists themselves are clearly so effed up and that the clients totally miss this fact is sad. I don't blame people who go because I've been there. Sometimes you're in that place where you NEED to believe someone can help you out of your suffering and the idea that no one can do that is terrifying. We're conditioned to believe that "seeking help" from a therapist is such a courageous act. "The first step" to a new you, a new life. It says it right there in all the therapist ads on Psychology Today. This belief in transformation is at the root of all this, I think. That we can rid ourselves of the things we don't like about ourselves/negative emotions/pain etc and be born anew under the guidance of a therapist.

The fact remains: we need to get real with ourselves and hold this industry accountable.

Well said.

Informed consent is important, but best protection is not buying into the big lie that you can't manage your own health and life and need a team of saviors (doctors, therapists, life coaches, etc).

Again, it isn't black and white. Yes, informed consent just makes sense, but to say that it is "a big lie" that you can't manage your own health and life might be true for you, but isn't necessarily true to another person.

YOUR health and life may very well be manageable without needing a doctor, therapist, etc. You can only really speak for yourself. And, people can go through periods in their life where they are able to manage quite well, and then other times when assistance might be needed.

For instance, my health and life are NOW largely quite manageable without needing professional assistance. I haven't needed a therapist in a long time, but there WAS a period in my life when my depression and PTSD symptoms were so severe that I was not able to manage my own mental health and safety; I absolutely needed the assistance and support of a therapist or pdoc. I don't any longer; I worked through that really unstable era with their help.

It is a shame that anyone should be shamed for needed the assistance

You mentioned doctors. Now, my health is generally good, but I like to breathe, and I have a medical condition that renders breathing nearly impossible at times. I can't manage that medical condition on my own; I can't think it away; I can't just eat better or something and fix that medical disease. Unmanaged, my medical condition can kill me. I need the services of a medical doctor.

While there are people who say they won't use a doctor; they don't care if they die, etc. Fine for them. But I prefer to maintain my health and life for many more years, and MY medical condition will always require medical support.

I'm new here and reading this topic because the issue that brought me to these boards is having terminated my therapy over a very painful rupture, and I'm still struggling with the aftermath, especially the attachment problem.

I think this is very true, understanding is not healing, although it can help to buy time by being able to cope better, and it can maybe move me along the way towards healing by steps too little to notice. At least I think my actual bits of healing might not have happened without paving the way with lots of understanding.

And when I say 'healing', I mean stuff like a lot of murderous contempt directed at my childhood self (errrm ... CSA-related) just ... gone. Or, with my ex-T, an invalidating reaction of her not feeling invalidating anymore (still harmful, but not as much). Partial results, especially the latter, but ... there's that much less to cope with.

I'm not sure how to make these happen on purpose, though. One was a psychodrama playback, the other was ... suddenly recognising my own stress responses in my T's behaviour, and while my understanding did tell me, gradually, that she might not have meant to dismiss my feelings --> she almost certainly didn't mean to dismiss my feelings, but that realisation just put several little things in place, and the original experience no longer feels invalidating. Alas, I acquired some fresh wounds in the process, so this was more of a beneficial side effect But still, encouraging that it happened. And I might have gone off-topic.

Back to attachment - I was kind of aware of the theory, and the concept of transference and mother/child bond did come up early in the therapy, I also have a history of getting attached to people to the point of obsession, and I fought it really hard in this relationship, and that probably contributed to it not working. Not sure what could have helped ... not avoidable I think ... maybe if my T became curious enough abt why I felt insecure in the relationship (instead of acting like my worries can't even be taken seriously - that was the thing I wrote about previously), it might have developed in a healthier way.

It's still, broadly speaking, a lie.

People are gonna need professional assistance in some circumstances, but much of modern society is brainwashed to believe they have no business managing their own health. Many people have no idea how their own body and mind work, and are dependent on therapists and doctors for basic things. I'm saying that questioning this crazy paradigm and avoiding these people as much as possible is possibly better protection than hoping therapists one day figure out how informed consent works, or become aware of all the ways their are exploiting, humiliating, abusing people.

I'll go even further and say that we need to seriously question this whole notion that everyone is so different and 'what works for you may not work for me.' That's a big selling point for therapists/self-help. It's a great way to deter people from addressing problems as a community. You don't need to have the exact same life as someone to be able to relate or help them. We're not all that different from each other. We all have the same basic social and emotional needs. Not only have they made us feel helpless in managing our own lives/relationships, they have made it so we think our problems are so special and different from the next person's problems. It has become taboo now to rely on your friends for emotional support because that's a therapist's job. Each one of us needs a special program to address our "specific and individual needs."

If you're struggling with anything for an extended period of time, you've reached a level that is beyond normal and unrelatable. People feel that it is not their business to get involved because well 'what works for me may not work for you.' And secondly, people are conditioned to think that any extended period of unhappiness is some kind of moral failing so they avoid you as if you're going to rub off on them. And people wonder why they feel so disconnected from others! There it is right there! Read any advice column. People write with normal life problems and are browbeaten into seeking professional help. They are told not to burden their friends/family and that their closed ones can't help them. There must be some deep psychological issue that needs to be rooted out. This is extremely alienating. Grief has now made it into the DSM. If you lose a loved one and grieve too long, well, you need professional help. Every imaginable life problem needs professional help nowadays. It's disturbing.

I don't know in which world you live. The world I recognise around me does not look anything like you describe. What you describe sounds to me like some kind of surreal parallel reality.

Perhaps that is what life in US looks like, I don't really know. But on the other hand, US is really not a center of the world even though the people living there are perhaps narcissistically prone to think so ...

Completely uncalled for.

I disagree. I think it's completely uncalled to present subjective (and possibly distorted) experiences and opinions as sweeping generalizations, discounting different experiences. If that's not narcissism then I don't know what it is.

Well I reported your post so let the moderators decide if what you said about and entire country is offense and uncalled for or not.

I think you were misinterpreting what I wrote.

I thought here a bit what is it that so irritates me in the posts that present these over-generalized views and opinions. It's true that I have a strong reaction to these posts.

And I realised that these posts very much resemble to me the style of my father who also presents himself as an all-knowing person who knows better what's good for everyone else, better than these people themselves. The people's own experiences mean nothing to him, they are boring to him because he is most entertained by his own thoughts and ideas. And my father is extremely narcissistic, he is literally unable to care about anyone else but himself. And of course, he knows the best, what treatment someone should undertake, what someone should eat or drink, what dietary supplements they should take and what exercises they should do.

It's just the tone of these posts is suspiciously similar to the rethoric I'm so familiar with ... I'm leaving this thread for good.

I have a relative living in SE Asia and he gets conventional US style healthcare there, and it is pretty common apparently, and has the same infantilizing and toxic effects based on what he describes.

Are you suggesting conventional western healthcare and psychotherapy/psychiatry aren't dominate systems across much of the world? These systems by their nature disempower and create dependency.

FYI, i am neither personally nor culturally narcissistic. Anyway, character speculation/assassination rants usually don't go well.

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like transference. Also your father sounds like a therapist.

Thread closed for administrative discussion. Please do not start another thread on this subject. Thanks everyone.