Therapy is a process of self-discovery which takes place in relation to the therapist, whose interaction with the patient parallels her early experience with her parents. A patient transfers to the therapist the feelings and attitudes developed in her relations with her parents. She plays her role faithfully, with the expectation of gaining love and approval and thereby overcoming her fears and anxieties; e.g., trying to impress with her effort and sincerity. Should this continue, therapy will fail. Role-playing is the main psychological resistance to the therapeutic undertaking.
Alexander Lowen, The Betrayal of the Body (1960)
March 2, 2021
When I read this passage, I was shocked by how exactly it described my relationship to Dr. L. I’ve been attracted to her from the day I met her, about six years ago. I never thought that this was, or would be, any kind of problem, simply because I’m so easily and shallowly attracted to so many people and for the most part, managed to ignore it if it didn’t go away on its own. I did not feel like I’d act any differently if I wasn’t attracted to her. (The Betrayal of the Body is an old book. As I understand it, “transference” now refers mostly to sexual attraction, not to parent-child roleplaying – and Dr. Lowen does say that in some patients, the two are confused, and I know by now that’s definitely the case with me).
But.
When I read this, I realized that I do act differently. I know this now because I had another therapist, and I realized that I would tell him things I’d never told her. I’d be surprised by my own candor and wonder vaguely where it was coming from, but I didn’t even try to answer that. I didn’t (don’t) want to think about the transference that is going on with Dr. L., because, well, I’m obviously invested in the role that I’ve been playing: the good child of the benevolent mother I never had, to whom… I am also attracted, which is so dreadfully sick… which is why it’s been six years, six years now of counterproductive roleplaying.
By this time, she knows me better than most people in my life. The realization that all this has been a role play on my part – not of my real role as patient, but the role of the good child – it’s not pleasant. I feel like I’ve been lied to by myself. Lately, I’ve felt fragile. I just want to get over this, but I don’t know how.
A conversation with my girlfriend dated March 28, 2021, after my last video call with Dr. L.
Six months later…
September 28, 2021
It was more than a little upsetting when C. told me yesterday that I couldn’t upload my journal entries about Dr. L. into our mental health blog. It’s not easy to explain how and why that experience was so important to my development. I had accepted the denial of my true feelings and needs for so long, that I’d made denial a normal part of my life. It was emblematic of how I suppressed my desires and lied to myself and others, because of my fear that I would be abandoned if they knew what was in my heart. I feared abandonment because I believed, deep down, that I was totally inadequate and I could never survive on my own.
Giving her up meant letting go of that fantasy that being a good girl would finally make mother love me and value me. The conditions of our therapeutic relationship mirrored too closely my own experience of childhood to be free of that association, though I only see that now. Like my mother, she was a doctor, she was stern, devoid of warmth, though she did sometimes laugh at my descriptions of my sordid misadventures. Her demonstrations of affection were few and warm far between. Occasionally, her criticisms were biting. She spent her money on vacations and designer wear.
A few times, she smelled of cigarettes, a smell I’d associated since early childhood with hotel rooms and fancy malls – and later on, the exotic and seemingly dangerous pseudo -intellectuals milling about in the haze of bars and parking lots in college. She had tattoos, on her ankle, and one on her neck, I think.
And, of course, she was supposed to know how to make me better.
I did not understand what all these things meant, so I just pretended they weren’t there. Her authority over me – my dis/misplaced longings, her strangeness, her chilly familiarity, the same patterns repeated as I desperately hoped for a different outcome this time around.
I did not get better. I got worse. Much worse.
This particular type of “love” that dares not speak its name is called transference.
If I had known this when I first began therapy with anyone, this never would’ve happened. I would have told her, and she would have handled my therapy differently – or referred me out.
Six years.
My life could have been so different by now.
Six years.
I could have healed much sooner.
My Name Is Trinity 