Posted by pegasus on October 7, 2007, at 21:49:47
I have this friend who is a T. Yesterday my friend asked me to consult on a case. I'm not really sure what I'd advise, and I'm hoping maybe some babblers will have some good advice. I have to keep things pretty confidential, but this is what I can say:
I'm going to call them T and client here. So, T and client have discussed client's love for T a lot in therapy recently. So far so good. T has been supportive of these conversations, and yet also made it clear to client that there is no chance that they would ever have a romantic relationship (and, in fact, is *not* at all attracted to this client in a romantic sense, although T would never tell client that).
A while back client revealed to T that client feels angry at T's spouse and young child, because they "stand in the way" of the two of them having a romantic relationship. T had a really strong negative reaction to this statement, and told the client that it was not ok to say that. T reiterated that they would not ever have a romantic relationships, because of their therapeutic relationship. T is very angry about this statement, and feels that it crosses a line of what a T has to put up with, but tries to leave the anger out of sessions.
Personally, I don't quite get the anger. I mean, sure it would suck to have anyone angry at my husband and daughter. And I'd feel a bit uncomfortable having someone going around with a fantasy that they stood in the way of a romantic relationships that I was personally not even interested in. But that's certainly within the universe of things that I'd expect to come up in therapy. It seems to me that it's all grist for the mill, and a symptom of the problems that the client is struggling with.
More recently, client has been focusing in sessions on trying to tell T about erotic fantasies involving the two of them. T is internally very angry and turned off by this. In sessions, T tells client that the content of the fantasies is not important, but that what they can work on together is how to manage these fantasies. After a few sessions where they weren't getting much done except wrestling over this, T is thinking of terminating the client (transfering client to another T).
I am appalled by this. They've worked together for over two years. I think T needs to deal with the negative countertransference, and work hard to get back to therapeutic sessions. Or at the very least, warn client that continuing in this manner is not therapeutic, and that client is risking being transfered to another T by insisting on bringing up these erotic fantasies.
What do you guys think?
peg
poster:pegasus
thread:787720
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070929/msgs/787720.html