 HY do
most individuals go into
psychotherapy? Well, there can be many specific reasons, but there often
is one basic, underlying reason: something was lacking in their childhood
family life, and this lack continues to cause problems even in the
present.
A Remedy for
Family Failure
Now, one very
common lack in contemporary families is the failure
to treat children with unconditional nurturing guidance and protection. So
instead of learning true love in their families, children—through all
sorts of family manipulation and game-playing, if not outright
abuse—are essentially taught to
fear love. And the pain of all this
loneliness, guilt, and
fear will live on in the
unconscious, in a sort of timeless emotional imprisonment,
even as the child grows through childhood and adolescence to
adulthood.
So, suffering
from psychological pain, you will seek out psychotherapy.
Through healthy and honest interactions with a
psychotherapist, you can learn to think and act in new, emotionally honest
ways, different from the psychological defenses created
in childhood, and current problems and symptoms
can be remedied.
The Psychotherapeutic
Relationship
In psychotherapy, the
client and the psychotherapist work together on the task of facilitating the
client’s psychological healing. In psychodynamic psychotherapy
(as compared to behavioral therapy) the task of healing
can be described as the task of bringing to conscious awareness the emotional pain
hidden in the client’s unconscious, in the hope that that
awareness will bring about a change in the client’s behavior. Although the client
and the psychotherapist work together on this task, it is important that they not
be concerned with each other in terms of mutual acceptance or gratification and
instead keep their attention focused on the client’s unconscious. The “we” of this
process is the “we” of mutual psychotherapeutic discovery, not a “we” of personal
desire.
Nevertheless, in this
profound interaction between the client and the psychotherapist a new problem can
emerge. It’s a problem completely different from the problem that brought the
client into psychotherapy in the first place, and it can take a client completely
by surprise.
Feeling
Special
As you begin
to encounter genuine concern for your well-being, the whole experience of
psychotherapy can feel overwhelming and intoxicating. Once having felt ignored
and misunderstood, and now feeling noticed and understood—and not
rejected—you can start to feel
special. Moreover, you can begin to
believe that the psychotherapist is special as well.
When this happens,
everything can take on a feeling of erotic “love.”
You see quote
marks around the word love in the last sentence because erotic feelings
are really feelings of desire, not love. I want to know more about the
psychotherapist’s personal life. I want to know what he or she likes.
I want to be with him or her outside the psychotherapy sessions. I want to
believe that he or she feels an attraction to me. And so on. That’s
desire. It’s desire because it is based in what “I want,”
not in what you or someone else needs.
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Think for a moment
about the whole purpose of family life and wonder what any infant needs.
Well, an infant, born into the world completely helpless, needs protection
and guidance in order to grow and develop its own abilities, so that, in
maturity, he or she can go out into the world to do good for others. That
protection and guidance—which is an aspect of
true love—isn’t meant to make you
feel “happy”; it’s meant to help you develop your unique talents
and grow into a productive member of the whole human family. |
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Now, true love
does have a function in psychotherapy. Love can be defined as “willing
the good of another,” and this is precisely what the psychotherapist
is ethically bound to do for all clients. The psychotherapist wills the
good of all clients by ensuring that all actions within the psychotherapy
serve the client’s need to overcome the
symptoms that prevent the client from living
a useful and meaningful life.
Flirting with
Emotional Disaster
As unpleasant
as it may be to admit it, erotic “love” is based on infantile needs
to be received, accepted, and satisfied. When someone feels intensely received,
accepted, and satisfied, then he or she is “in love.” But sooner
or later that intensity will be broken. The break doesn’t even have
to be the result of malicious neglect; it can simply be the result of a need
to attend to other obligations in the world, and, in the person feeling
neglected, intense jealousy
can flare up.
This explains
why “lovers,” friends, and blog readers, with all their personal
needs and desires, cannot function psychotherapeutically. And it explains
philosophically—above and beyond any laws or professional ethics—why
psychotherapists cannot be friends or “lovers” to their clients.
If they try, it will lead to psychological disaster, for without the “third
person” of the unconscious in the consulting room
the psychotherapy will degenerate into emotional chaos.
Understanding
the Erotic Transference
Erotic
“love” within the psychotherapy—technically called an erotic
transference—is not necessarily a bad thing, though. That is, it’s
not a bad thing if it can be understood as one essential step toward learning
true love.
Just as any child
who receives gifts from others must first go through a phase of development
characterized by a “hoarding” or “clinging”
mentality—Mine! Mine!—before learning to share with others,
so you, in feeling the enthralling acceptance of your psychotherapist, will
at first want to hoard that feeling and claim it as your own personal possession.
But that feeling can’t stop there, and your psychotherapist’s job
is to make sure it doesn’t stop there. The child part of you really desires
love, not the person who gives the love, and your psychotherapist
has to help you understand that.
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Sadly, many
psychotherapists are not very competent in dealing with subtle
psychodynamic issues. In fact, many psychotherapists
feel uncomfortable with a client’s erotic transference. Why? Because
many psychotherapists are unconsciously caught up in their own erotic
transference with the world around them. And so these incompetent
psychotherapists can make a mess of the whole process. Instead of just admitting,
“Sure, you’re an interesting and attractive person. But that’s
not what this work is all about. So let’s get on with the real work,”
they try to hide behind a forced façade of neutrality that only leaves
the client exasperated and confused. And if the client tries to speak about
his or her feelings, an incompetent psychotherapist will shy away from really
exploring the depth and vast unconscious extent of
those feelings. Or an incompetent psychotherapist will, for his or her personal
satisfaction, “fan the flames” of the client’s desire. Yet
none of this is psychotherapy—it’s just more of the same manipulation
and game playing that has brought the client into treatment in the first
place. |
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So remember why
someone goes into psychotherapy: to experience a sense of genuine recognition
so as to overcome the lack that disturbs current social functioning. Once
all the manipulation, game-playing,
and dishonesty that characterize your interpersonal relationships are dissolved
through the integrity and honesty of the therapeutic relationship, then you
can enter into an honest life of true love for
others.
The Real Task
of Psychotherapy
Your task in
psychotherapy, then, after you experience that intoxicating feeling of
unconditional recognition, is to recognize in the transference
itself your
desire to hoard that feeling. At this point it will be important to talk
openly within the psychotherapy about those desires and explore their deepest
unconscious significance. Talk about how good it feels
to experience recognition and understanding. And talk about how painful it
felt to have been unrecognized and criticized as a child.
Assuming you
have a competent psychotherapist, resist the temptation to
terminate the treatment so as to run from the
embarrassment of honest communication. Work through the awkwardness of it
all until your desires for the psychotherapist are seen for what they are:
an intoxicating attempt to hoard feelings of recognition and
understanding.
Then, having
understood the profound difference between desire and love,
and having worked through the unconscious illusions (i.e., psychological
defenses) behind your intense desire for one person, you can proceed
to offer genuine love to everyone.
Summary
When you are
working to overcome the transference, keep in mind this important
fact:
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You are not “in
love” with your psychotherapist; you are obsessed with the idea
that another person can give you what has been missing in your life because
of what your parents—especially your father—failed to give you
in your childhood. |
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For a discussion
of some real-life complications of transference, see
Questions and Answers about the
Psychotherapy Process.
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