I am
a 45 year old female who has been in psychotherapy with a male psychiatrist
for about 20 months. I was depressed, suicidal and addicted to drugs when
I began seeing him and the process has been very intense. I’ve worked
through powerful transference feelings for him of love, hate and terror.
He has handled all this well and helped me to understand that I was transferring
feelings toward him that I suppressed as an abused and neglected child. In
recent weeks I have been feeling much better and our meetings have been less
emotional and intense, though I feel I’m still getting a lot out of
psychotherapy and I still feel dependent on him. But he has begun to ask
me what our goals are now and what work we still have to do. I told him that
I never came to psychotherapy with the intent to work on things, but just
came because I felt I needed to see him and I still feel that way. He got
annoyed and said that’s not a reason to continue and if the only problem
in my life is my dependence on him, then we should cut back from once a week
to every other week. He told me he really wants me to think about what
we’re working on before our next session and I feel distraught over
this. I never saw psychotherapy as work, but just as this overwhelming emotional
process that I was caught up in. If work happened, it just did because I
made myself so vulnerable to him.
I’m thinking maybe I need to work on ending psychotherapy, saying goodbye
to him. But this thought makes me unbearably sad. I don’t know what
to tell him and hope you might have some advice about when and how to
end.
Psychotherapy is not just a matter of healing the past;
psychotherapy is also a matter of facing the future.
Now, if you are
no longer “depressed, suicidal, and addicted to drugs,” then you
have done some very good work already. So, given all that you have accomplished,
what work remains? Your future.
You can easily
neglect your future, though, by focusing too much on the satisfactions of
the present.
For example,
a young child could become so dependent on her parents’ protection that
she hesitates to separate from her mother or father in order to start exploring
the world. This separation anxiety can even cause developmental delays
in a child.
Well, the
transference feelings a person experiences
in psychotherapy are very similar to a child’s feelings of attachment
for a parent. But, just as a child’s social and psychological development
will suffer if the child clings dependently to parental protection, you cannot
attain a healthy future if you cling to the present satisfaction of your
transference feelings.
Like parental
love, which, in a healthy family, is a means to a child’s
independence—and to the child’s ability to perform productive work
in the world—transference should be understood as a means to
an end. Through transference you heal the past so as to face the
future.
Your remaining
work, therefore, is to dissolve the transference bond so that, functioning
independently from your psychotherapist, you can take up your future work
in the world with courage and
honesty.
Remember, you
were depressed, suicidal, and addicted to drugs because you didn’t receive
from your parents the love and protection you needed, and so, in your
fear and
anger, you got stuck
in feelings of
victimization and
never “grew up.” Now, having experienced the guidance and protection
of psychotherapy, you have permission grow up and step into the work of your
future.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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