Therapy is a relationship, and, with any relationship, there are feelings. As you’ve been on your therapy journey, you might have noticed feelings attached to your therapist. Perhaps you feel unsure or surprisingly safe and comfortable with your therapist. These feelings are part of what we call transference. Transference refers to feelings or desires that are placed on the therapist that stem from early relationships in your life. Simply put, they are feelings, which can be negative or positive, that you might have towards your therapist.
For example, you might feel safe and comfortable with your therapist because your therapist reminds you of your mother with whom you had a good relationship. On the other hand, you might feel unsure or guarded with your therapist because they remind you of your father with whom you had a tumultuous or tense relationship. It can be helpful to pay attention to your transference towards your therapist because you can gain valuable insight into yourself, your dynamics, and your relationships. As you deepen your work, your relationship (and your transference) with your therapist will also start to deepen and become more complex. Here are some areas in which you can begin to notice your transference with your therapist:
Do You Find Yourself Trying to be a Good Client?
You might notice a tinge of anxiety hit before you step into your sessions. You might feel an inherent pressure to have a topic prepared for you and your therapist to discuss and work through. It might be helpful to be curious about what is underneath this anxiety. Are you worried that your therapist will become annoyed with you if you don’t come to session with a topic prepared? Do you feel like your therapist relies on you to keep the session going? Do you feel like you need to prove to yourself and your therapist that you are making progress? You may be trying to be a good client for your therapist.
It may be helpful for you to be curious with your therapist about where this pressure to perform as a client might be coming from. Perhaps, growing up, you felt a constant pressure to prove yourself or risk feeling criticized and belittled. So being prepared became a way to protect yourself from judgment. As you start to become aware of your conflicts, you might try to challenge yourself to come to session “unprepared.” As you experience your therapist as non-judgmental and safe, it might allow you to ease into your work in a way that allows you to be more open and honest with your therapist in a way that allows you both to deepen the work.
Do You Feel Upset with Your Therapist?
If your answer is “yes,” I want to assure you that this is not necessarily a bad thing. You might have a fantasy that your therapist can perfectly know your needs and know how you will react in all situations. Wouldn’t that be great? However, your therapist is fallible because they are human. They might know you better than many people in your life, but they aren’t perfect. Because of this, it is inevitable that your therapist will fail you or misunderstand you in a way that feels painful and upsetting. That’s right. It is inevitable. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Nobody likes the idea of being wounded, especially by someone who is supposed to know you and be your safe place. Feeling misunderstood by your therapist, even if you’re not aware of it, can lead you to feel angry or frustrated with your therapist.
Though the wounding part of therapy is no fun, the repairing part of the relationship can be profound and impactful. Telling your therapist that you’re upset with them can be terrifying and vulnerable. Do you feel safe to tell your therapist how you feel? If you do, what’s stopping you from telling them? If you don’t feel safe, why is that? Figuring out how to work through a rupture can be such an important juncture in your relationship with your therapist.
If your therapist can hear where you are coming from as well as own how they may have contributed to your feelings, it can be an incredibly healing moment. On the other hand, if you experience your therapist as invalidating and becoming defensive whenever you share your feelings towards your therapist, it may be important to consider whether this is a therapist you want to continue working with. This kind of dynamic may not be helpful, especially if it reminds you of a repeated, invalidating dynamic from your past.
Do You Expect Your Therapist to Rescue You from Your Pain?
This might feel like an absurd question. Of course, you want to feel better! However, therapy is a process and it’s work! It can be uncomfortable at times and even painful. The phrase “it gets worse before it gets better” is very applicable to therapy. As you become more aware of your conflicts and painful experiences that you may have learned to repress in order to protect yourself, a lot of painful emotions may be stirred up. This might cause you to want to flee or maybe become upset with your therapist for hurting you instead of making you feel better. You might even want to punish your therapist by leaving therapy. With this, it might be worth wondering what might be underneath your reaction. After feeling nurtured or safe with your therapist, did you start to develop a fantasy that your therapist would rescue you from your pain? What does this fantasy mean to you and why was it so painful for your therapist to fail in making this fantasy a reality?
Sometimes the insights that you gain in therapy can feel overwhelming. It may feel safer to flee. Your boundaries and desire to flee is important to pay attention to. Your own feeling of safety is incredibly important and if you no longer feel safe, of course, you will feel compelled to flee. Before you give into your impulse to leave treatment, it can be helpful for you to discuss how you feel with your therapist. Your therapist can help you understand what you might be feeling, as well as figure out ways to make therapy less overwhelming. Perhaps, this might mean more flexibility in scheduling or coming up with signal words to indicate when things feel too much. You don’t have to figure this out all on your own. (And if you feel like you do, why is that?)
Gentle Reminder
Paying attention to your transference can certainly help deepen your work. AND you are not solely responsible for figuring all of this out on your own. Your therapist can help you by noticing how you respond to them. Therapy isn’t about doing things all on your own, but having someone walk alongside you in your journey. It’s a beautiful kind of synergy, don’t you think?
About the author
Dr. Jean Jho is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist (PSY30433) in Carlsbad, CA. She specializes in working through depression, anxiety, and trauma in adults of all ages.
Dr. Jho is currently accepting new clients locally in her office in Carlsbad, or via video conferencing to people throughout the state of California.