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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 09:44 AM
  #41
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Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie View Post
I talked to BetterHelp T about how I would like a transitional object from my T. He said:

"As far as the helpfulness of a transitional object, I suppose it could prove to be useful in order to bridge the gap between his presence and your life outside of session. I could also see it serving to just perpetuate your attachment to him though. It could serve as yet another reminder of him that strengthens the attachment."

He is probably right.
I think this all kind of depends on one's take on attachment and transference. The way I see it, the transitional object is best when one struggles with object consistency and/or self-soothing. By the end of your week, is your T a bit of a stranger to you again? Do you fear he'll be someone else or feel he is someone else?

For what it is worth, I don't believe it is wrong to perpetuate an attachment. I think this may fall back under the psychoanalytical stuff as a big part of that seems to be in working with transference and attachment as a primary intervention. I see nothing wrong with a T fostering an attachment as long as boundaries are firm enough to minimize if not completely keep from fostering dependency at the same time.

Why do you want a transitional object? Have you had one in the past? How has it helped or what do you think it will do for you? Can you find something yourself? I don't know what your financially situation is; one of the things my T encouraged was me acquiring items that spoke to the younger parts. We would sort out later why that item spoke to me and what it was giving me. Her encouragement and acceptance of these objects actually created stronger transitional objects than the actual things she gave me. They feel like there is more of her with them, more things/emotions I can associate to her with them.
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 09:49 AM
  #42
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I think this all kind of depends on one's take on attachment and transference. The way I see it, the transitional object is best when one struggles with object consistency and/or self-soothing. By the end of your week, is your T a bit of a stranger to you again? Do you fear he'll be someone else or feel he is someone else?

For what it is worth, I don't believe it is wrong to perpetuate an attachment. I think this may fall back under the psychoanalytical stuff as a big part of that seems to be in working with transference and attachment as a primary intervention. I see nothing wrong with a T fostering an attachment as long as boundaries are firm enough to minimize if not completely keep from fostering dependency at the same time.

Why do you want a transitional object? Have you had one in the past? How has it helped or what do you think it will do for you? Can you find something yourself? I don't know what your financially situation is; one of the things my T encouraged was me acquiring items that spoke to the younger parts. We would sort out later why that item spoke to me and what it was giving me. Her encouragement and acceptance of these objects actually created stronger transitional objects than the actual things she gave me. They feel like there is more of her with them, more things/emotions I can associate to her with them.
Yup he has in the past given be a glow in the dark silicone bracelet with the elements of Water, wind fire..... on it. It spoke to my child part for sure. It was to help ground the child part and remind her of him and be comforted by it. OMG I cherished that thing! That was last year. I still have it but it does not give me the same feeling because our relationship was in a different place.

Yes purple means something to my child part and I surround myself with purple. My phone case, watch band, purse, whatever I can get in purple.

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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 09:56 AM
  #43
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Reference: I feed lots of Raccoons and their cubs on my porch. Don't judge me.

In session yesterday T tried to make analogies to help me see that I know how to take care of my child part.

He was using the Raccoons as symbolism's or references to show me I do know how to take care of my child part. He ask. "If you saw one of the large males beating up one of your cubs what would you do?". "When you stepped onto the deck to clean up and one of the cubs was still on the railing and it was crying like a puppy because it was scared what did you do?". "Is it the cubs fault it is getting beat up? Is it the cubs fault that it could not climb down fast enough to follow its mother? If the cubs make a mess of the deck do you wait until they return and yell at them viciously and beat the up or do you just clean it up because that is what cubs do?" It was ways for him to show me that I already know how to nurture a child and I can do it for myself when in the memory. It is to show me I was a just a child and not to blame for doing normal annoying things that children do and should not have been abused for it. Apparently I blame my child parts for the abuse and for the trouble it causes me in adult life and I want nothing to do with it. In other words I lack compassion for myself. I understand what he is saying but I do not feel what he is saying.
I feel like he is leaving out one key piece here... when you are cleaning up after a raccoon, pet, another child, another person... your child part has not been activated, you are not experiencing the world through those elements. Instead, you still are connected to your adult or to maybe all of you parts. When you are experiencing the world through your child parts, you might not have access to your adult parts to know how to respond. If they ... your adult and child parts are not talking to each other, not working together... how is the child supposed to believe the adult will be there to take care of and all that jazz... and if the adult blames or despises (whatever) the child part why would they step in.... and a bigger question... is if the "adult" blames, despises, or whatever the child part... is it really the "adult" part? Is it really the 'I' of your system or is it another part that has stepped in and is aligned with or identifies with the perpetrator of your abuse, and is perpetuating the bullying or abuse?

For me, I found that it was that part that was trying to keep me safe by modeling the parenting I grew up with, that it was not the adult me or the 'I'. I had thought of it as my adult part because that is what the adult in my life did as my parent. That is what I thought an adult did. I still have a long way to go, so again this may shift as I grow. It's how I understand it at this point.
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 10:29 AM
  #44
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Yup he has in the past given be a glow in the dark silicone bracelet with the elements of Water, wind fire..... on it. It spoke to my child part for sure. It was to help ground the child part and remind her of him and be comforted by it. OMG I cherished that thing! That was last year. I still have it but it does not give me the same feeling because our relationship was in a different place.
Does it feel like it isn't connected to your T anymore or your T isn't the same person that gave you it? Or does it somehow feel tarnished by the rupture you had with your T?

If it simply doesn't feel like it has the energy(for lack of a better word) of your T, then having him hold it for a while might recharge it. Him taking it back and keeping it for a week or even just a session then giving it back to you might be a very valuable symbolic action of repairing the rupture. Hard to say what your psyche would do with it. For me, as I typed that up, I imagined/felt a sense of forgiveness and welcoming of my return in that kind of action. If my T did something like that, I would feel as if she was saying that I wasn't bad, she still loves me, and I am (still) welcome/wanted. And maybe it just had that feeling for me because of where I am at the moment. Who knows.

If it feels tarnished, shoot I don't know. I've yet to figure out how to unblend something from that feeling. Instead it usually continues to hold the emotion and memory of the painful experience.
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 12:53 PM
  #45
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I feel like he is leaving out one key piece here... when you are cleaning up after a raccoon, pet, another child, another person... your child part has not been activated, you are not experiencing the world through those elements. Instead, you still are connected to your adult or to maybe all of you parts. When you are experiencing the world through your child parts, you might not have access to your adult parts to know how to respond. If they ... your adult and child parts are not talking to each other, not working together... how is the child supposed to believe the adult will be there to take care of and all that jazz... and if the adult blames or despises (whatever) the child part why would they step in.... and a bigger question... is if the "adult" blames, despises, or whatever the child part... is it really the "adult" part? Is it really the 'I' of your system or is it another part that has stepped in and is aligned with or identifies with the perpetrator of your abuse, and is perpetuating the bullying or abuse?
I am trying to understand this. So what you are trying to say is that the part that is cleaning up after the Raccoons in not the adult and perhaps another part. In my T's world there are 3 part. only. Child, Parent and adult. So who is it then?

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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 02:22 PM
  #46
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I am trying to understand this. So what you are trying to say is that the part that is cleaning up after the Raccoons in not the adult and perhaps another part. In my T's world there are 3 part. only. Child, Parent and adult. So who is it then?
I'm trying to say that maybe the part that struggles with your child part, isn't the adult part. It might be the parent part (if I was to have to limit myself to those 3 parts) since from how I read your posts, it more closely mirrors what you felt your parents might have felt towards the child you.

And maybe when you are feeling the child part, you are in a state of needing support and soothing; and the adult/parent parts are not reachable.

It's hard for me to narrow myself down to just those 3 parts as my inner world doesn't feel like only those 3. I might be able to divide them into 3 committees consisting of those types of parts. So, anyway, in the 3 part ego state, I struggle with separating out the parent and the adult when talking about soothing and taking care of. I always think of the adult being the one that gets things done (the manager so to say) and the parent as the one that soothes, comforts, and protects. But if we didn't have that as a kid, how are we going to be able to do that with our own child part. Our child part doesn't trust "parents" and while our parent part can be compassionate towards others, it has internalized the narrative about ourselves from what we experienced as a kid. In my opinion, one has to first get those 2 parts to be willing to be "wrong" about the other before they can even start to see the real them. I don't know if I'm making sense at all.

Hope that helps.
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 03:03 PM
  #47
Adult, parent, child are the key positions in transactional analysis. Has he explained the fundamentals of how these states work and interact with each other - as well as how they interact with the states of others?
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 04:24 PM
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Adult, parent, child are the key positions in transactional analysis. Has he explained the fundamentals of how these states work and interact with each other - as well as how they interact with the states of others?
I do not understand what you are trying to say here. Tread lightly.

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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 04:26 PM
  #49
So I put the question to Betterhelp T how he would handle this if he had a client like me and he responded.

"That's a really good question and one I have asked myself as I am sure you can imagine. Personally, I equate attachment with love, and not necessarily romantic love (though that as well). I see them pretty much as one in the same thing. If I were in Michael's shoes, the way I would conceptualize it is that I have a client who loves me. I'm not sure if this is how you conceptualize it, but this is what helps me to do so. And how do you go about falling out of love with someone? What makes someone fall out of love? Perhaps a wrench could be thrown in the idealized version of me; we could work on viewing me as a person who has flaws just like any other human. Perhaps sessions could be tapered to eventual termination with the intention of allowing the attachment to dissolve. Perhaps we could work on finding a substitute for the attachment --- an activity or another person. In any case, it would be incredibly difficult. I can only imagine being in either your shoes or Micheal's. It would take an immense amount of effort for both myself and the client. And it would be quite scary for both myself and client too."

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When a child’s emotional needs are not met and a child is repeatedly hurt and abused, this deeply and profoundly affects the child’s development. Wanting those unmet childhood needs in adulthood. Looking for safety, protection, being cherished and loved can often be normal unmet needs in childhood, and the survivor searches for these in other adults. This can be where survivors search for mother and father figures. Transference issues in counseling can occur and this is normal for childhood abuse survivors.
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 10:26 PM
  #50
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Girlfriend that is a lot fo questions!

So I described it as feeling like my self worth was tied to him. Feeling of being nothing, empty, worthless along with the longing to be loved by him and taken care of by him like a child. When not with him I feel like I have been kicked out of my home and not wanted until the next session. Like I just do not want to exist if he is not in my life.

All day I think of ways I can make him proud of me. I am modeling what he did with his business. He had professional pictures done and a brand new website. So I am having a photo shoot in two weeks for pictures for my website and hired someone to update my website. It will be good for my business and it will show him my best adult self did something mature.

I never really felt any anger. Fleeting it was when I wanted him to fail at his practice and die. He does EMDR and Ego state. Combination of both. I can not pin point exactly when the transference became a problem. Yes he wants to go back to doing EMDR going back into the same memory we worked on for months and I felt we never got anywhere with it.
I kind of hate to suggest this because I certainly have no qualifications, just a lot of reading I did trying to figure myself out. But for what it is worth, this sounds to me like a (normal/natural) idealization of your parent by a child, and like it got stymied. For very young children their (idealized) parent is experienced as a part of the self, according to some theories. Is that what it seems like to you? Does that memory have anything to do with anything like that? Is it possible there is some deeply unconscious feeling that you haven't been able to get to with EMDR (yet) because it's so well defended against? Nevertheless, could that be part of what's still keeping you stuck?
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 11:29 PM
  #51
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Girlfriend that is a lot fo questions!

So I described it as feeling like my self worth was tied to him. Feeling of being nothing, empty, worthless along with the longing to be loved by him and taken care of by him like a child. When not with him I feel like I have been kicked out of my home and not wanted until the next session. Like I just do not want to exist if he is not in my life.

All day I think of ways I can make him proud of me. I am modeling what he did with his business. He had professional pictures done and a brand new website. So I am having a photo shoot in two weeks for pictures for my website and hired someone to update my website. It will be good for my business and it will show him my best adult self did something mature.

I never really felt any anger. Fleeting it was when I wanted him to fail at his practice and die. He does EMDR and Ego state. Combination of both. I can not pin point exactly when the transference became a problem. Yes he wants to go back to doing EMDR going back into the same memory we worked on for months and I felt we never got anywhere with it.
Sorry, I somehow missed this reply. I don't know what to say. Like here today, I have no qualifications. There are some similarities between what you are experiencing and what I experienced/experience. My T is out of the office next week. Yesterday was the last session with her. I see her 4x wk and I email on the other days and have for over a year now. This is the 3rd time that she has been out of the office and it didn't feel like she was gone the minute I stepped through the doorway to leave on the last session. 2 of the times have been while doing video visits so I don't know if that has played into it or not. For several years, when she took time off, I would fear she would be a different person when she got back. I also would be panicky around who would take care of me if something happened to her while she was away. Like I said I see her 4x a wk. For the first 10months-a year, I saw her 1x a week. We moved to 2x a week and stayed there for a year before adding a 3rd time a week. We were at 3 times a week for about a year and a half before moving to 4 times a week. We'd just started that when covid hit. When I was 1x a week, I had a pattern of sad/missing/longing/aching, then I'd get mad at myself and at her - I'd call myself all kinds of names, then I'd lose any connection to her and by time the next session happened, she was a stranger again. At 2x week, we were able to keep me from forgetting who she was in terms of connection and transference. It was also almost a constant state of missing, longing, aching, wanting - very painful times. At 3 times a week, I was able to bring anger into the room, some of the longing and aching started to dissipate. I still wanted and missed her. I still want and miss her very often.

I can't say for sure that my self-worth was tied to her in the same way you feel yours is to your T. When I started seeing her, I was actively suicidal. I believe it was her belief in my life was worth living that made a difference. My trust in her around that belief allowed me to let her hold something/contain something. I'm not really sure what.

From what I experience, you can guess I have low object consistency. This is hard for me with everyone. From what you've written, I'm not sure your's is object consistency. Maybe it is more like what here today is saying about blending/merging your sense of self with what you perceive to be the idealized parent. My T once asked me if I ever felt like I wanted to crawl back into the womb. Her question brought out some anger feelings and confusion for me. I'm not sure if it's an accurate thing for me, there are some things that kind of point there. I have no clue what it means.

Ok, that's a lot about me. Do you know what about being apart leaves you feeling kicked out and not wanted until your next session? It seems to me that you are able to hold onto who your T is so what about the separation feels like being kicked out... I mean literally, is there something about how you end session that feels like you are being discarded or pushed aside? How soon after a session does this feeling happen? Are you ever able to feel the being wanted feeling with the anticipation of your next session? You know that session is coming, you know you'll be home with T then. And yeah, sometimes the space both the office and the contained space feels like home to me too. There's been times where I've asked or stated something about wanting to come home. At one point my T said something about it being ok to want to come home, that I was welcome to be home. Did the feeling of being kicked out start after your rupture that lead to you taking a break from him or was it happening before then? Can you pinpoint when it started and what might have triggered it?

You don't have to answer these questions, they are just things for you to think about.
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Default Sep 04, 2020 at 11:40 PM
  #52
Okay, just your t's fantasies of the raccoon kits getting abused would be enough to make me quit him. What is wrong with him that he brings that kind of violence into the room? You cant get nurturance from him - he only knew abuse in his past. Thats what it sounds like to me.

Plus he is angry that you have the ability to care for them. I dont know if this relationship can be saved - i always think they can, but wow it could get ugly. You would have to confront him on his ugly fantasies. Yuck.

Eta - i think your better help t is saying the same thing - the regular t is acting like a butt.
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Default Sep 05, 2020 at 05:07 AM
  #53
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Originally Posted by here today View Post
I kind of hate to suggest this because I certainly have no qualifications, just a lot of reading I did trying to figure myself out. But for what it is worth, this sounds to me like a (normal/natural) idealization of your parent by a child, and like it got stymied. For very young children their (idealized) parent is experienced as a part of the self, according to some theories. Is that what it seems like to you? Does that memory have anything to do with anything like that? Is it possible there is some deeply unconscious feeling that you haven't been able to get to with EMDR (yet) because it's so well defended against? Nevertheless, could that be part of what's still keeping you stuck?
Do you have any literature on this? I can not find in what stage in a child’s development that they are to idealize their parents.

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Default Sep 05, 2020 at 06:59 AM
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Do you have any literature on this? I can not find in what stage in a child’s development that they are to idealize their parents.
My T has said that this is like elementary school age (maybe 5-10-ish).

I find your BetterHelp T's response about love curious. Why do you need to stop or change the love? For me, the purpose is to have my love accepted and cherished. That it is okay to love my T and for her love me back and it can just be. That's... pretty much everything. The whole point. She doesn't use the word love (so neither do I), but that is essentially what it is. For somebody who was not really seen and loved by my parents, that's the only thing my child part craves.
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Default Sep 05, 2020 at 02:58 PM
  #55
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Do you have any literature on this? I can not find in what stage in a child’s development that they are to idealize their parents.
I don't have anything specific. It has to do with how a child/person's sense of self develops. That's generally about age 2-3, or starts by then.

The ideas about idealization and the development of a sense of self come from psychoanalysis. Here's one article.

Self Psychology
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Default Sep 05, 2020 at 10:42 PM
  #56
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Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie View Post
So I put the question to Betterhelp T how he would handle this if he had a client like me and he responded.

"That's a really good question and one I have asked myself as I am sure you can imagine. Personally, I equate attachment with love, and not necessarily romantic love (though that as well). I see them pretty much as one in the same thing. If I were in Michael's shoes, the way I would conceptualize it is that I have a client who loves me. I'm not sure if this is how you conceptualize it, but this is what helps me to do so. And how do you go about falling out of love with someone? What makes someone fall out of love? Perhaps a wrench could be thrown in the idealized version of me; we could work on viewing me as a person who has flaws just like any other human. Perhaps sessions could be tapered to eventual termination with the intention of allowing the attachment to dissolve. Perhaps we could work on finding a substitute for the attachment --- an activity or another person. In any case, it would be incredibly difficult. I can only imagine being in either your shoes or Micheal's. It would take an immense amount of effort for both myself and the client. And it would be quite scary for both myself and client too."

I found someone's master's thesis (posted the link in the 'interesting articles' thread) that is basically a small survey on how clinicians handle idealising transference, and the theoretical background on it. She found that many (most, even?) went with Kohut's ideas of it (I hope I don't misrepresent it too much) being a developmental need and needs to be let to run its course (as opposed to it initially being viewed as a defense mechanism that has to be interpreted away).

My own experience:

I have a BPD diagnosis, which is supposed to come with alternating phases of idealisation and devaluation, and it's somewhat true for me. I can to some extent bridge the gap if I try really hard, but not fully (took me decades to learn even that), even less with something as intense as this stupid transference with ex-T. For a long time I didn't notice / acknowledge that part of my transference is probably the same as any other 'idealising transference', it just isn't the dominant one all the time, but now I think that it is. And, here's the kicker: despite her making it very clear in very painful ways that she's a flawed human being, that idiotic little girl part of me STILL wants to idealise her.It can't, really, my other parts are not letting her, but no amount of rational thinking, no amount od hurt and rage from other parts stopped her from trying. So I'm not sure BetterHelp T-s idea would work that well. As long as the 'little fool' has the need to idealise, she'll hold onto that idealised image no matter what. Stupid thing is still looking for ways to somehow get back to ex-T, because it must all just be some terrible misunderstanding. (It doesn't help that the angry part of me that feels betrayed and defeated yet again also wants to go back and shout her head off, lol).

Mind you, from what I see of your case, M also very clearly proved that he's a fallible human being.

I think while there's a lot common in attachment and love, adult love and a little-child love are very different, so might not be the best idea to treat them the same?
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Default Sep 05, 2020 at 10:52 PM
  #57
Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricManatee View Post
My T has said that this is like elementary school age (maybe 5-10-ish).

I find your BetterHelp T's response about love curious. Why do you need to stop or change the love? For me, the purpose is to have my love accepted and cherished. That it is okay to love my T and for her love me back and it can just be. That's... pretty much everything. The whole point. She doesn't use the word love (so neither do I), but that is essentially what it is. For somebody who was not really seen and loved by my parents, that's the only thing my child part craves.
Yeah, the problem is, 'love' can mean so many things. I think this 'idealising love' is indeed something that one would want to gradually change eventually, seeing that it's clearly based on a false image of the other. Like it often happens naturally in romantic relationships, if all goes well.
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Default Sep 06, 2020 at 04:28 AM
  #58
I believe the idealizing stage occurs much earlier than elementary school. Have you never seen how very small kids (even less than a year old) sometimes possessively and totally adoringly look at their moms? I have seen it and it really looks like being totally in love.

Also, many small kids show very dependent behavior (for the lack of a better word). They don't let the mom out of sight even for a second and if the mom goes to bathroom for instance then they cry to whole time behind the closed door. They maybe occasionally do some independent play on their own but very soon they look around for mom and if she has sneaked away then they start crying and come to look for the mom for attention.

Some people then respond with pushing more independence, thus actually fostering the clinging even more. On the other hand, those parents who accept the clinging and offer enough closeness and attention, will experience one day that their child has gained enough security and starts to more explore on their own.

Honestly, I thought that I have to start attending school together with my older son (starts at the age of 7 in my country) because even at the age of 5 it seemed to me that he would never accept being there alone without me. But he grew out of it and now he is a very independent young man who still knows that I am there for him if he has any troubles or wants to share anything.

In therapy, I believe that any intervention that is designed to lessen the idealization and get the patient less dependent on the therapist (other than patiently letting the process run its course, being there and accompanying the process, helping to work through it and make sense of it as much as possible, while carefully making sure to not add or foster depenency artificially by ambivalent signals or unnecessary self-disclosure) is doomed to fail because that's simply not how these things work naturally.
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Default Sep 06, 2020 at 04:35 PM
  #59
So what does one do when
1. working through such a transference / letting it work itself out is not an option, for me certainly, because any attempts to sort things out with ex-T made things worse, if anything, and neither of us is willing to try anymore (I know I'm not, from our last email exchange I got the impression that she isn't either). I also have serious doubts about Moxie's T for that matter.
2. one would rather not feel that sort of desperate longing and helplessness ever again, let alone for yet another bloody therapist (I mean, I actually like the current one, and she didn't do anything particularly alarming yet, but ... still a therapist and I really don't want to somehow transfer this bloody transference to her). Except maybe for the part that keeps getting into these situations, damnit. I know I'm supposed to be compassionate with myself, and sometimes I can, but this **** is thoroughly unsafe, I get hurt again and again and again, why can't I learn that already?!???!?
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Default Sep 06, 2020 at 06:57 PM
  #60
What does it mean “work through the transference”? What does that look like? I want to cut this out of me so bad and not feel this pain that is so hard to describe. I feel like my hear is breaking.

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When a child’s emotional needs are not met and a child is repeatedly hurt and abused, this deeply and profoundly affects the child’s development. Wanting those unmet childhood needs in adulthood. Looking for safety, protection, being cherished and loved can often be normal unmet needs in childhood, and the survivor searches for these in other adults. This can be where survivors search for mother and father figures. Transference issues in counseling can occur and this is normal for childhood abuse survivors.
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