Tales of a Boundary Ninja

AG, you’re a fantastic writer and, I believe, a kind, thoughtful, insightful, and incredibly mature person, based on what I’ve read here beginning recently. I was reading one of your earliest posts, about insecure attachment and “why you think you’re crazy.” It’s just terrifically interesting and helpful. I feel like I could be you, to a certain extent, and I confess that I am a little freaked out by what you relate of BN, because he sounds exactly like my therapist, who is also a man. (I wish there were some non-intrusive way I could make sure we’re not seeing the same person, but I can’t imagine asking anything more specific that “do you live in the northern or the southern English-speaking country of North America”?) Maybe what BN is like just represents what a good–no, excellent–therapist does and says. I know I am very fortunate to have mine, though I feel very strange at how long my experience has gone on. Years. And I didn’t even experience abuse as a child, so I often feel as though all this long time is unwarranted and pathological in itself. Your discussions of attachment are helping clarify a lot of things about why I have the issues I do, though.

I know you are going through some deep things now, but I haven’t been on your blog long enough to feel I can say anything personally supportive to you. Still, please know that I’m another person out here, appreciating what you give to us and wishing the very, very best for you.

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Hello Attachment Girl,

I find what you write about erotic transference incredibly clarifying and/or confirming feelings I’ve been having about my T. From what you write about BN, my T. seems to be his female equivalent. I’m experiencing heavy maternal transference with her, and suffer at times in between sessions from intense longing to be with her. I recognize the dynamics of getting closer to growing when these feelings are very intense, as long as I stay focused on my own healing process, which the therapy is all about anyway. I find it incredibly difficult/shameful/embarrassing to talk to her about this, but when I get round to it, her reactions are always very accepting and non shaming. Which motivates me to continue to deepen my healing work and open up to her – and life – even more. It’s a slow process, but an immensely gratifying one, especially when I get some felt sense of really moving towards new and healing insights.
Feelings between a client and a therapists are of a very unique kind, unlike any feelings we experience with anybody else in our lives. On the one hand, you get to go deep inside yourself, often towards a very immature, hurt and needy part of you and experience the most intense and raw feelings. On the other there is this very specific frame in time and space in which this happens, with someone who is – within that frame – solely dedicated to your healing, and you pay them for it. Who wouldn’t get confused?
My feelings for my T. have little to do with who she is as a person. Of course, I get a sense of her personality when I’m with her, and what I see, I like. But I realize all too well that that is such a small part of who she really is. The transference in our relationship just brings up all this ancient material and that can be very destabilizing at times. Especially when the adult that I am today gets overwhelmed by pain that was experienced by the very young child I once was. But bringing it up makes it possible to heal the pain, to deal with it and to be aware of it as a – often negative – driving force in my existence.

To all of you struggling with transference – maternal, erotic, or other – don’t despair. Try to see it for what it really is, talk to your therapist about it and use it to heal.

I wish you all a lot of courage – god knows we need it sometimes!

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