Posted by dancinbillie on January 4, 2008, at 16:23:02
In reply to sexual element of 'transference' with therapist, posted by widget on January 4, 2008, at 9:05:57
Hi Widget, hope this finds you well.
I believe you should definitely bring up the subject again, and soon, this time at the beginning of a session so your T doesn't have the time constraint excuse. Perhaps acknowledging his discomfort would ease the beginning of the discussion? I don't know . . .
I have experienced a sexual transference with one of my former therapists and, I figured out, with a psych RN with whom I got way too close (no sex of course) when I was in an outpatient psych program. I'm female, and they were both female, so I slightly freaked out because I've always identified as hetero. I've been talking with my current T about it, but we're nowhere near the "bottom" of the issue.
I have, though, realized that I'm bisexual, and talked with my hubby about it - he was great about it - he's had homosexual experiences in his life as well. I haven't been with a woman as of this point, but who knows what the future holds?
As someone else noted, maybe there's an element of caretaking involved in the attraction - I've had crushes on many women throughout my life (I'm 43) and though I wasn't interested in actually having sex with them, I did fantasize about what they looked like/sounded like when they had sex with their lovers. Shoulda tipped me off about my bisexuality, I guess! My T and I noticed a pattern of me developing crushes on women who were in caretaking roles in my life - not every woman who fulfilled such a role, but a lot of them.
I think I might know a little about how you feel when your T shows his discomfort about discussing the sexual transference. I opened up about my transference (but called it maternal because I was embarrassed) toward the previously mentioned psych RN in a cognitive group session that she was leading, this past summer, and she immediately took it as me being sexually attracted to her instead (maybe she sensed something, I don't know), freaked out TOTALLY (even though she's 57 and has been a psych nurse for about 30 years), and has been able to use her "uncomfortable" feelings about my so-called "maternal" transference to get me banned from the outpatient program completely. I denied throughout the rest of the program, during which she and I were separated by the rest of the team, that it was a sexual thing, like I said because I was so embarrassed.
It doesn't sound like your T is going to have a fit like that, though. Maybe I'm saying to go easy with him - as has been noted, Ts are just people with lots of education and training. Plus it's a hetero thing - I wonder if my psych RN was so blown away because it was a homosexual thing.
DB
poster:dancinbillie
thread:804141
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080101/msgs/804268.html