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Rive1976
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Default Sep 12, 2018 at 09:13 PM
  #1
Why if we see our therapist as a mother or father would we also want them sexually. I know its quite normal but its gross.
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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 05:22 AM
  #2
I like to think of it as the manifestation of child like feelings and needs in an adult body.
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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 05:35 AM
  #3
Because we have different parts that come forward depending on what triggers them. Sometimes my child parts are in the drivers seat and I want my T as a father and sometimes my teenage/ early adult part have taken over, who learned from a young age that if a man did something nice for me that I repaid them with sex, and then there is my adult self that finds him intellectually stimulating and that triggers my libido.

I flip all over the place day to day.

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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 13, 2018 at 07:01 AM
  #4
We are attracted to people who help us and care for us.
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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 08:22 AM
  #5
I imagine, the same reasons we can feel attraction to anyone...

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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 09:02 AM
  #6
Because they are not real. You don't really know them and they don't really know you. It is fiction.

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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 11:20 AM
  #7
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Originally Posted by stopdog View Post
Because they are not real. You don't really know them and they don't really know you. It is fiction.

I agree with this. Yes, some people tend to get attracted to others that seem to demonstrate undivided attention and caring although not everyone follows this pattern, whether in therapy or in everyday life. There can be many subjective reasons. For example, I do tend to feel drawn to people who show some similar characteristics as my father had, because my dad and I got along really well and he had traits and strategies in his life that I naturally grew to value, like independence and autonomy, ambition, creativity, a good level of fearlessness to try new things, optimism, an undying entrepreneurial spirit that never left him until ~age 80. A self-made non-conformist. He was always encouraging me to explore whatever I was interested in and to create a life I wanted for myself, whether it involved family or not. Very inspiring person in general. I definitely developed a lot of the same features in myself effortlessly but his influence was a great example throughout my life. He also had less endearing traits such as a level of narcissism that I did not like and still don't like in people, and sometimes that comes with the ambition I tend to like in people, but I tend to avoid those that have too much of it.

But in terms of therapy, I agree with stopdog that we don't really know the Ts. Many of us tend to project certain features onto them though and they often encourage these projections and exploring them as working with transference and such. People in everyday ordinary relationships do not usually cherish and encourage such projections and we also get a lot more realistic info from those interactions, which can prevent the cultivation of strong transference processes. I know, for example, that I tend to get quite irritated when people project on me and idealize me beyond short periods and usually try to break the illusions. Most psychodynamic therapists don't break but encourage them at least initially, of course that leads to the feelings developing and staying more/longer.
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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 11:44 AM
  #8
They listen, and give their undivided attention to you, and they know many secrets of you that you would not share with anyone else. So you have invested a great deal of trust on them.

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I haven't been to my T for over a month now.

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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 07:17 PM
  #9
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Because we have different parts that come forward depending on what triggers them. Sometimes my child parts are in the drivers seat and I want my T as a father and sometimes my teenage/ early adult part have taken over, who learned from a young age that if a man did something nice for me that I repaid them with sex, and then there is my adult self that finds him intellectually stimulating and that triggers my libido.

I flip all over the place day to day.

Yes, it's different parts looking for something different. Plus according to...Freud I think? There's a point in early childhood development when we're in love with one (or maybe both?) of our parents. For me, too, I think with ex-marriage counselor, I kept thinking how I wanted him to hold me. So it's like, to my adult brain, "Oh, that must mean I'm attracted to him and want him romantically and/or sexually." When "I want him to hold me" could have just as easily been coming from a child part. It's very confusing, I agree (I had both paternal and erotic transference for my former marriage counselor).
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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 07:20 PM
  #10
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Originally Posted by vishva8kumara View Post
They listen, and give their undivided attention to you, and they know many secrets of you that you would not share with anyone else. So you have invested a great deal of trust on them.

p.s
I haven't been to my T for over a month now.

This, too--ex-marriage counselor said at one point how therapy can be very seductive because of this. It's someone listening to you and caring about you. Current T has said something similar, in how it's common for clients to have romantic feelings for their therapists because of the intimate nature of therapy. It's two people sitting in a room together, one sharing their deepest thoughts and feelings while the other listens intently and expresses care. Which isn't so far from what romance can be, except with that, you also have to worry about the other person's thoughts and feelings, where that's much less the case with a T.
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Default Sep 13, 2018 at 11:25 PM
  #11
Wow...this has finally clicked for me.
So if we tend to fall in love with that "father figure" that explains why I tend to be attracted to guys who are are abusive momma's boys and I have absolutely no desire to be attached or connected to my T. It also explains why I have actually asked T to be mean to me so I would be more comfortable in session. Maybe there are reasons behind my freakishness.
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Default Sep 14, 2018 at 04:18 AM
  #12
I think it's a common misconception that babies and children have zero sexual impulses. I don't mean in the same sense that we as adults experience them... i.e. wanting to have sex (although I wonder if that is really a societal construct, as much as a biological urge) but I mean in terms of desire, love, excitement, arousal. All you have to do is look at a baby who has just been fed. You know, that blissed out milk drunk look of total contentment?

And the people who provide us with the stimuli are usually our parents - touch, love, comfort, intimacy, excitement. When we are small, all of those feelings are all mixed up in a big bubbling soup of 'good feelings'. That's our template for relationships. Don't they say men marry their mothers and women marry their fathers? Though one therapist I read said, women also marry their mothers.

Then there's the Oedipus complex theory, which I have to say, having had small children and been one, I totally get. This is the stage where women tend to develop their 'daddy' issues from.

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Default Oct 20, 2018 at 07:57 AM
  #13
I have maternal and erotic transference for my T. Sometimes one dominates over the other and sometimes it's a mixed bag. I've read that the distinctions we place between emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy, non-sexual sensuality, sexual and non-sexual physical pleasures... are actually pretty blurry.

A mother/child relationship, and a lover/lover relationship are probably the peak of intimacy. You grow in the mother, merged, and then you're kept close to her for a long time after birth. As a baby you don't even have a sense of self separated from the mother. She breastfeeds, soothes you and meets your needs. That's very sensual and intimate. The closest 'merging' we have access to now are sexual/romantic adult relationships. If the childhood needs were unmet they could find some expression through relationships we have as adults. Your mind and body are going to make associations between all those messy feelings you have for your T.

Our underlying desires for the T are presumably childlike needs of emotional intimacy, affection, being soothed, merging with a parent, etc. But we're interpreting these needs as adults and it stirs up sexual feelings. Our minds are searching for a role in which to place the unique relationship of therapist/client, and with transference it feels like all sorts of intimacy and love. To me it's like I want to be as close as possible to her; experiencing both types of feelings is like maximising the intimacy.

So I think parental and erotic transference for your T makes sense because there are similarities in those feelings and relationships. We're both adult humans so the possibility of chemistry and attraction is there. We're experiencing repeated emotionally-intimate contact with a caring person who offers unconditional positive regard, and they might even be attractive too! Totally understandable to be attracted, even with the parental feelings too. I see it as a general whirlwind of loving feelings being stirred up in me, and it's okay if it seems weird, because it's a hot mess of different needs and desires directed at this one person.
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Default Oct 21, 2018 at 08:12 AM
  #14
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Originally Posted by Dnester View Post
Why if we see our therapist as a mother or father would we also want them sexually. I know its quite normal but its gross.
Feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are....not gross.
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