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Elio
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#41
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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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MoxieDoxie
trust is a myth and caring is a painful lie
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#42
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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. __________________ 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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Elio
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Elio
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#43
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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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Elio
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#44
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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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MoxieDoxie
trust is a myth and caring is a painful lie
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#45
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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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Elio
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#46
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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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#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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MoxieDoxie
trust is a myth and caring is a painful lie
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#48
I do not understand what you are trying to say here. Tread lightly.
__________________ 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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MoxieDoxie
trust is a myth and caring is a painful lie
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#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." __________________ 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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here today, SalingerEsme
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Grand Magnate
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#50
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Elio
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#51
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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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Elder Harridan x-hankster
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#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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MoxieDoxie
trust is a myth and caring is a painful lie
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#53
Quote:
__________________ 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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ElectricManatee
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#54
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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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SalingerEsme
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#55
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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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corbie
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#56
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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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corbie
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#57
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Poohbah
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#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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SalingerEsme
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corbie, here today, MoxieDoxie, Quietmind 2, SalingerEsme
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corbie
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#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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here today, SalingerEsme
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MoxieDoxie
trust is a myth and caring is a painful lie
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#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.
__________________ 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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here today
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