I have
a tremendous amount of transference going on with my therapist to the point
where I can say I feel almost in love with her. I resent the fact that she
has a life outside of our hourly weekly session. I resent the fact that she
has other clients. I know that this is her job, but want more from her then
she can offer within the confines of therapy. I have spoken to her about
this, and she says she can love me with “words.” But as time goes
on, I feel more and more dependent and angry with her for not giving me what
I want. She keeps trying to get me to express my anger with her, but I have
a hard time doing it. Should I terminate with her or keep talking about the
feelings? I’ve been seeing her for four years. When I first met her,
there was no impact or impression for me, but has time goes on, I feel almost
obsessed with her.
The more you “keep talking about the feelings”
the more you will learn about yourself. In fact, when you say, “I know
that this is her job, but want more from her then she can offer within the
confines of therapy,” you are actually stating the very reason you are
angry with her.
Most likely you have felt this way—i.e., that you want more than
what others offer you—about other persons in the past, especially your
parents, so what is happening with your psychotherapist is really nothing
new. Therefore, when you tell me that you are “almost in love with
her” you are really trying very hard
unconsciously to
convince yourself that you are “almost in love with her.”
Why? To avoid the feeling of anger. If you love her, you can’t hate
her, right? Or so we all would like to believe. Thus you are on the edge
of encountering the ugly truth about
“common”
love that everyone resists admitting: that in this case, your feelings
of love are nothing but a form of bribery to avoid your own feelings of
frustration.
Sadly enough,
when you say that you want more from your psychotherapist than she can offer,
you may be unconsciously admitting that she really can’t give
you what you really need: the deep philosophical understanding that this
erotic feeling is just an
illusion to protect
you from your own pain and frustration. Her saying that she can love you
“with words” clearly misses the point, doesn’t it? So, ultimately,
you may just have to
terminate with
her, not because she won’t give you what you want but because
she lacks the understanding of how to teach you what you really
need. This fact alone should make you angry for wasting four years
with her. So just maybe you will risk taking all that anger into one of your
sessions and finding your “love” suddenly
flip-flop into
hate. And then maybe you will learn exactly what you need to learn about
how you have been fooling yourself all these years.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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