Hi!
So this is going to be VERY tricky for me, it’s like high leveled English for me, so I’m going to try to write my thoughts about the transference and countertransference issue’s.
I am just really reading and learning about it so I’m a big newbie. But I have tons of idea’s and questions, so just to try to order my mind, a blog post.
Thanks to Wikipedia;
Transference is a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is “the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person’s childhood.”[1] Another definition is “the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object.”[2] Still another definition is “a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person … for the original object of the repressed impulses.”[3] Transference was first described by Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient’s feelings.
more; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transference
So.. transference and counterstransference (damn, luckily it’s in the title, otherwise I’d be copy and pasting the sh*t out of it 😛 ), it’s like this very tricky thing. I don’t think I fully understand it just yet, but I am trying to.
First of all I’ll explain how I came to this subject.
Once upon a time.. no.. seriously, I had a talk with Betty thursday over the phone. Basically she (and I) seemed stuck. We don’t know what to do anymore, at least I get the feeling she doesn’t either. She asked me ‘Do you think someone else could help you better?’. I was a bit shocked that she asked that, but instantly I thought ‘hell no’. After we hung up, I got to think about this a lot more.
So basically since I was 16 I have been in intense therapy (before that just flowing from one therapist to the other) and since that moment people have been telling me, I act to them as I act to my mother. Yeah, I’ve always had female therapists and I do get this ‘I want you to be my mummy’ feeling, and yeah I have it with Betty to. However, the people who do see me and treat me that often, I get this major mood swings with them as well. Suddenly they’re the worst person on earth and I hate them and then out of nowhere (it seems nowhere) I like them and want them to be my mummy again.
Betty once said to me (I think I wrote this once before) that she knows why I am acting like this (the same to them as I do to my mother) but that she just does not accept that. I was really ashamed of myself and realized what I had done.
So anyway, on the phone last thursday we were talking about how there is no clear line about my therapy. It’s just always crisis this, crisis that. So I told her it’s like I’m taking her in my emotional rollercoaster as well. She kind of agreed with me. Which made me think… every therapist has been in the rollercoaster with me!!! Oh my God. I’m horrible! It’s like there’s no way in between. Either you’re with me IN the rollercoaster, or youre not allowed in the theme park! They just can’t wait outside.
I know I do get very clingy to them, sometimes I really need to tell myself ‘NO! DONT DO IT!’, because I just feel like grabbing on to Betty asking her to never let me go again, or just to grab her leg and hold on tight. Like, seriously? She’d scream when I’d do that, I think xD or tell me I’m being inappropriate, haha. (What else is new?)
Ok this is gonna be a long one xD
Anyway! So yeah, I’ve been realizing that I’m taking everybody with me in the damn rollercoaster. And maybe yeah, I’ve been acting to them as if they’re my mums.
So the whole Brandon thing came up. Last Wednesday I had a talk with him and it did not go well… at one point he wanted to talk to me about a bit detailed stuff and I was like ‘uhh.. how about.. NO!’ So he told me that it might be important and stuff. I said to hem ‘lets make a deal, I’ll talk about it, if I get a free card for tomorrow for unlimited cutting’. (Yeah, shaking my head aswell, it must be terrible to treat me) So he told me ‘Its not up to me if you cut or not, it’s your responsibility’. But right after I had said that I knew how wrong I had been and that it was line crossing stuff.
So uhm, yeah, that about Brandon. Like, what the hell am I doing? Am I trying to provoke him?
So that about the whole thing that made this come up.
I have read a book about ‘Complex Trauma’ in Dutch and it said a little bit about this whole transference thing and I thought I got it. Then I talked to Justy and she said something about it which made me think even more. So I have been looking it up on internet, at explanations and stuff.
So yeah, about this transference and countertransference thing, is that about them going with me in the rollercoaster? Especially because of people telling me I’m acting the same way to them as if they are my mother.
I am realizing that I’m being stupid but at the same time, I just can’t get out of the rollercoaster! I’m stuck!
So this thing (damn, gotta type it again xD) transference, and the whole emotional toddler thing, IS THERE A WAY OUT?
Well, realizing this all for now really made me think (or just made it more clear) about how hard it must be to treat me? Sometimes I get the feeling nobody can, which is ridiculous of course, but it just needs a lot of time, or well more than usual. I do think it’s normal with (c)ptsd? Or BPD for that matter. But.. who resists it? How do you get out of it? I feel bad for Betty and Brandon (and the other people from the ‘team’) who deal with me, because I’d be pissed about an annoying ‘patient’ like that. And just get irritated by the idea of seeing him/her that day xD
I get the feeling I gave Betty a bad feeling about her treatment skills, though I REALLY think she is an amazing therapist, she manages to hit me at places which gives me a wake-up call, but I just sweep back into old behaviour. Like I need someone to correct me all freaking week-long. Like they are saying to me, you gotta walk from A to B. And then I go home and continue walking, but whenever I step foot of off the path someone needs to remind me, because I don’t really notice it untill I’m like hating Betty/Brandon (and then realizing ‘hey.. what changed?’). I do feel me slipping down sometimes, like looking back at my blog, the posts about the loneliness might have been a good first symptom or something like that.
I feel so complex (like other people must feel of course!), maybe it’s because they’re used to work with a bit older people, and I have just let go of the breast-feeding stuff, and they’re like ‘what a baby!’. I have been there for 12 months now, and I’m still ‘fighting’ with Betty.. I don’t want to fight.. but I keep doing it.
She told me it’s hard for her to keep track of the therapy-line, when these crisis come in (like suicidal feelings etc.), and I just wander of the therapy-line, and she wanders of with me :’)
So anyway, I’ve been blabbing for way too long. In some way I do think it’s funny, but just so stupid/painful it’s funny.. I feel real bad for Betty and Brandon. I do imagine the ‘team’ fighting at therapy over who will get Brianna today, like ‘no I don’t want her, she’s annoying, let Brandon have her today’ and the Brandon will be like ‘well I don’t want her either, she’s tiring, I’ve had her for 12 months now, you take her’ etc. That not funny, and not really logical, but there is a tiny part of me that might consider it going like that.
There are like a million things I’d like to say more but I’m on 1400 words now, time to quit.
So, does anyone have any ideas on this? Or own experiences? Please share!
xoxo
Brianna
Me & CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) 