Is It Time to Reevaluate Your Therapy?

I've written many articles for this psychotherapy blog about how to find a psychotherapist that's right for you, and how you know if your therapy is working for you.

See my articles: 

How to Choose a Psychotherapist

Psychotherapy: Psychotherapists Listening and Learning From Clients

Psychotherapy: How Talking to a Psychotherapist is Different From Talking to a Frien

Being Honest With Your Psychotherapist  

In this article, I'm focusing on how you know if you need to reevaluate your therapy and recognizing some of the possible signs that your therapy might not be working for you.

Is It Time to Reevaluate Your Therapy?  Warning Sign:  Therapist Frequently  Falls Asleep in  Session

Consider Reevaluating Your Therapy Under the Following Circumstances:

• Your therapist misrepresented his or her skills, which you discover after you begin therapy.
• Your therapist lacks the professional skills to help you and is working outside the scope of his or her expertise.
• Your therapist lacks empathy for your problems.
• Your therapist doesn't respect your ethnic, religious, racial or cultural background.
• Your therapist talks too much about him or herself in your sessions.
• Your therapist hardly talks at all and you feel alone.
• Your therapist frequently falls asleep during your sessions.
• Your therapist can't remember basic information about you from one session to the next, and you have to keep repeating your story.
• Your therapist tries to be your friend instead of your therapist.
• Your therapist doesn't like that you're developing other sources of emotional support among healthy family members and friends.
• Your therapist frequently takes non-emergency calls during your sessions.
• Your therapist often misses appointments or shows up late.
• Your therapist has a belittling or dismissive attitude towards you.
• Your therapist uses your sessions to try to get advice from you during your sessions (e.g., you're a financial advisor and therapist tries to get financial advice).
• Your therapist thinks that his or her method of doing therapy is "the only way."
• Your therapist doesn't continue to develop his or her professional skills at seminars, workshops or online.
• Your therapist pressures you to confront family members when either you're not ready or you know it would be dangerous to do so.
• Your therapist promises you that you will be "cured" of your problem by seeing him or her.
• Your therapist breaks confidentiality by naming other clients.
• Your therapist breaks confidentiality by providing information about you without your permission or without a mandate.

Recognize even more serious "red flags" about your therapy under the following circumstances:

• Your therapist crosses boundaries by being seductive or trying to initiate a sexual relationship with you (see my article: Boundary Violations and Sexual Exploitation in Psychotherapy).
• Your therapist's license has been revoked.
• Your therapist has no license at all and never had one.
• Your therapist tries to borrow money from you.
• Your therapist appears to be emotionally unstable.
• Your therapist appears to be impaired on alcohol or drugs during your sessions.
• Your therapist attempts to push his or her religion on you.
• Your therapist becomes too emotional when you talk about your problems.
• Your therapist is frequently late or doesn't show up for your appointments.

Serious "Red Flags" in Your Therapy: Sexual Boundary Violations

Under the first category of items, if you've expressed your concern and your therapist hasn't changed his or her behavior or attitude, it's your right to tell your therapist that the therapy isn't working for you and you'll be seeking other help.

Under the second category of items, the "red flag" items, these problems in therapy are serious enough for you to discontinue therapy and look for someone else, especially in cases of serious boundary violations.

Conclusion
It's not always easy to recognize these problems, especially when you're in a vulnerable state, which is why I hope this article will be helpful to clients who aren't sure if they need to reevaluate or leave their therapy.

I have been a psychotherapist for over 20 years and I've known many therapists.  I believe that the vast majority of therapists are caring, qualified and ethical professionals.  Most therapists enter the field because they feel a calling to help clients and use their expertise in an appropriate and professional manner.

But, just as there are unethical people in any profession, there are cases where some therapists shouldn't be in the profession.

Even if none of these circumstances apply, if you think you're not making progress in therapy after a reasonable time, you've discussed this with your therapist and you still don't know how your therapist is going to help you to overcome your problem, consider that you and your therapist just might not be a good fit or your therapist lacks the skills to help you.

Making a change in your therapy can feel daunting, but continuing to work with a therapist when the therapy isn't right for you is a waste of your time and money.

If you find yourself in one of these unfortunate circumstances in your therapy and you're not sure what to do, it might be wise to have a consultation with an experienced, objective therapist to talk over your concerns so you can make a decision about what to do.

Finding the Right Therapist Can Make All the Difference For Your Emotional Healing

Once you've found a psychotherapist that is the right therapist for you, it can make all the difference in your journey toward healing.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my articles:
The Therapist's Empathic Attunement in Therapy

Asking For What You Need in Therapy

Empowering Clients in Therapy - Part 1

Empowering Clients in Therapy - Part 2: Clinical Issues

Beyond the "Band Aid" Approach in Therapy

Ruptures and Repairs in Therapy

Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: When You "Fall In Love" With Your Therapist
What is EMDR Therapy?

Overcoming the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Childhood sexual abuse is more prevalent than most people think, and the psychological effects can be much more far reaching than had been recognized in years past. 

It's only been relatively recently that people have even begun to talk about childhood sexual abuse more openly, and people have sought psychological help to overcome its effects. 

Years ago, this topic was considered taboo and survivors of childhood sexual abuse often kept these traumatic secrets to themselves, often to their detriment.

Overcoming the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Childhood sexual abuse is a very broad topic and there have been many books, articles, and TV programs about the psychological effects. One blog article can hardly do justice to such an important topic.

What is Childhood Sexual Abuse?
Broadly speaking, childhood sexual abuse is any form of sexual touching, kissing, inappropriate undressing or any other form of sexual behavior with a child. Childhood sexual abuse is a boundary violation that often has severe detrimental effects on the child.

Who Engages in Childhood Sexual Abuse?
Anyone who is around a child is a potential sexual perpetrator. Often, the sexual perpetrator is someone who would, under normal circumstances, be trusted with the child, including one or both parents, another family member, a teacher, a religious leader, babysitter, or other people.

Often, people who engage in childhood sexual abuse have been sexually abused themselves and they are repeating this pattern.

Regardless of the circumstances of how or why this occurs, adults who engage in childhood sexual abuse are responsible for their behavior both morally and legally.

Can a Child Ever be Held Responsible for Sexual Abuse?
Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse often feel responsible for the abuse for a variety of reasons. First, let me answer my question with a resounding "No." Children are never responsible for their own sexual violation. However, as adults, as previously mentioned, they often feel that they brought it on themselves in some way which, of course, is not true because children don't have the developmental capacity and often don't have a way to stop the abuse.

Often, when survivors of childhood sexual abuse begin psychotherapy to deal with the aftermath of the abuse, they talk about the sexual acts "feeling good" and they have a lot of guilt and shame about this. When a survivors of sexual abuse tells me this, I help them to distinguish between what might feel good in their body or on an emotional level from their feelings of being responsible.

Perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse have an uncanny way of selecting children that they sense are vulnerable.

These children are often lonely or neglected in some way and they're craving attention. To a child who craves attention, sexualized attention is better than no attention at all. Even if they feel uncomfortable, many children go along with the perpetrator because he or she might be nice to them in other ways: spending time with them, taking an interest in things that interest them, giving them gifts and so on.

If the perpetrator happens to be someone who would normally be considered a trusted family member, friend, or clergy, children who are being sexually abused can become very confused and doubt their own feelings of discomfort or that the abuse is even happening.

In some of the more egregious forms of childhood sexual abuse, perpetrators often threaten the children or threaten to harm a family member if the children reveal what's going on.

Psychological Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse:
Each person's experience will be different and the psychological effects will be different. Experiences can vary depending upon age, temperament, the relationship with the perpetrator, whether there are explicit memories or only vague feelings or sensations, and so on.

The important point when considering the psychological effects of childhood sexual abuse is that no one goes unaffected because it is such a personal boundary violation.

Often, without realizing it, adults who were sexually abused as children have difficulty with sexual intimacy in their relationships.

Before I go on, I want to caution that not everyone who has difficulties with sexual intimacy has been sexually abused. There are many varied reasons why a person might have difficulty with sexual intimacy, including physical reasons, other types of violations or breaches, depression, anxiety, and so on. So, no one should automatically assume that because they're having problems being sexual with a partner that this means he or she was sexually abused.

The following scenario, which is a fictionalized account and does not represent any one person or persons, illustrates the possible psychological effects of childhood sexual abuse:

Alice:
Alice was in her early 20s when she met Bob at a friend's party. They were instantly attracted to each other, they had similar interests, and they began dating soon after they met. It was important to Alice that she get to know Bob before they became sexually intimate, so she wanted to wait a while before they had sex. Bob was becoming increasingly fond of Alice, so he didn't mind waiting.

After they had dated for a couple of months, Alice felt like she was ready to be sexually intimate with Bob, and she let him know. After a romantic dinner, Alice and Bob went back to his apartment. His roommate was away, so they had the place to themselves.

Alice felt warm and close towards Bob, and she was excited about taking their dating relationship to the next level. Other than kissing, Alice had never had sex with any of the other young men that she had dated in the past, but she felt that there was something special about Bob.

As they were sitting on the couch, listening to music by candlelight, they began to kiss. Alice enjoyed kissing Bob and she was feeling increasingly passionate. But when Bob touched her breast, Alice froze both physically and emotionally, and she began to feel confused.

On the one hand, Bob's touch felt tender and exciting, but on the other hand, it also started to make Alice feel queasy. She tried not to pay attention to the queasy feeling in her stomach, but it continued to get stronger and her confusion increased.

At the point when Alice felt that she was going to vomit, she pushed Bob's hand away. He realized immediately that she was upset and asked her if she was all right. Alice didn't know what to say. She felt her whole body go rigid and cold, and she felt that she wanted to run out of the apartment. Aside from feeling confused, she also felt ashamed.

Without words to express what was going on with her, Alice told Bob that she had to go and she rushed out of his apartment and went back to the apartment that she shared with friends. Bob was stunned, and he tried to talk to Alice, but she left in a hurry and told him not to follow her.

Over the next few weeks, Bob tried to call Alice. She heard his voicemail messages, but she was too confused, ashamed and guilty to call him back. She didn't even feel comfortable talking to her close friends about what happened. She just knew that she never wanted to feel that disgusting, queasy feeling again. So, she continued to avoid Bob and, after a few weeks, he stopped calling.

This was the beginning of a long line of disappointments for Alice whenever she tried to be sexually intimate with men. Aside from getting an upset stomach and feeling ashamed, confused and guilty, Alice also felt a sudden emotional revulsion whenever she began to be sexually intimate with a man. Each time that she attempted to be sexually intimate, Alice hoped that the experience would be different, but it never was.

By the time Alice was in her 30s, she had experienced so many physical and emotional upsets with sexual intimacy that she no longer wanted to date. She tried to tell herself and her friends that she was "just fine" being alone. But the truth was that she was very lonely and she wanted to overcome whatever was causing her to feel so uncomfortable and mistrustful.

Struggling with this issue on her own brought no relief, so her best friend recommended that Alice see a psychotherapist. Alice had always thought that people who went to therapy were "crazy," but her friend explained to her that, quite to the contrary, many people went to psychotherapy for everyday, ordinary problems, and they weren't "crazy." So, Alice obtained a recommendation from her doctor and made an appointment with a psychotherapist.

During the first session, the psychotherapist took a family history as part of the initial session. This is standard practice. When the therapist asked Alice if she had experienced any sexual abuse or molestation, Alice's first inclination was to say "no," but she hesitated.

She knew that her Uncle John used to touch her breasts whenever no one else was around. She also knew that this began when she was about nine years old. But she wasn't sure what to say about it because whenever he touched her, she felt confused and she continued to feel confused about it.

Uncle John tended to be kind and generous with her, especially after Alice's father died when she was four years old. He took a special interest in her, taking her to the park, teaching her how to ride a bike, taking her to the movies, and listening to her in a way that her mother, who was depressed after Alice's father died, never did any more.

One day, soon after her 12th birthday, when she was alone with her Uncle John, he sat next to her on the couch, as he had many times in the past. However, this time, he offered her a sip of his beer. Alice never tasted beer before and she knew that her mother wouldn't like it, but she also thought that Uncle John would never ask her to do anything that was wrong. So, with some hesitation, she tasted his beer, and he encouraged her to drink more.

She didn't think much about it because it just felt like any other activity that she shared with Uncle John. But after a while, Alice's head began to spin. Uncle John had already drank quite a few beers and he asked Alice to sit on his lap. Alice had not sat on Uncle John's lap since she was about four or five years old, so she thought this was odd. When she hesitated, Uncle John said he felt hurt that she wouldn't do this. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, Alice sat on Uncle John's lap, even though she felt uncomfortable.

As Alice continued to drink more beer, she could hardly keep her eyes open, but she saw the expression on Uncle John's face change. She had never seen him look at her like this, and she wasn't sure what was happening or if she could even trust what she was seeing because she was pretty drunk by then.

But when Uncle John put his hand up her blouse and began fondling her breast, she felt confused. On a physical level, part of her felt good and excited, but and her stomach was also queasy. All the while, Uncle John was telling her how beautiful she was and that she was his favorite niece.

Soon after that, she passed out, and when she woke up, she was in her bed and her mother came home. Uncle John came up to her room to say goodbye. Alice remembered vaguely what happened, but Uncle John looked at her so kindly, the way he always looked, and she began to doubt her own recollection of what happened that day.

The next time that Uncle John babysat for Alice, she turned down his offer to drink his beer and she told him that she didn't feel comfortable sitting on his lap. Uncle John turned away from her and turned on the TV. He refused to talk to her, and this upset Alice greatly. He was the only one who took any interest in her in the family, and she loved him very much.

When she could not get him to pay attention to her, she went up to her room, feeling very lonely and sad, and she cried herself to sleep until her mother came home.

The following time, it was much the same, and Alice felt desperate for Uncle John's attention. So, she told herself that it wasn't so bad, after all, to drink beer with Uncle John and sit on his lap. When she told him this, Uncle John transformed into her Old Uncle John, kind, attentive and warm.

She didn't drink as much beer as she did the first time, but she acquiesced to Uncle John's wishes and allowed him to fondle her breasts. She fought off the queasy feeling in her stomach and told herself that this was a small price to pay to have Uncle John's attention.

So, this continued on without Alice revealing this to anyone. Uncle John told Alice that no one would understand the "special relationship" that they had together and he told her not to tell anyone so it would remain special between the two of them.

Around the time that Alice turned 15, Uncle John no longer wanted to spend as much time with Alice, which she didn't understand. He had many excuses as to why he wasn't available. But Alice found out from her mother that Uncle John was now spending more time with Alice's cousin, Lisa, who was a year younger than her.

One day, when Alice went over to Lisa's house to look for Uncle John, she found the door open so she walked in. She walked into Lisa's bedroom, where she heard Lisa and Uncle John laughing. At first, she could not see anything because the room was dark.

Then, when her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw Uncle John having sex with Lisa. She was stunned. It was obvious that they were both very drunk, and Uncle John shouted to Alice, "Get out of here! You're too old for me now! Lisa's my favorite niece now" and Uncle John and Lisa both laughed at Alice.

Lisa ran out of the house and never told anyone what she saw. After that, she never wanted to spend any time with Uncle John. Whenever she saw him at family functions, he acted like the Old Uncle John, as if nothing had happened. This confused Alice, and made her doubt what happened to her with Uncle John and what she saw when she went to Lisa's house. She thought to herself, "How could this be the same Uncle John who always took care of me?"

All of these thoughts were swimming around her head after the therapist asked her about childhood sexual abuse. Over time, Alice was able to talk about what happened and she realized that her uncle was a pedophile, and she was sexually abused as a child. She also began to connect the queasy, frozen feeling that she had as an adult when she was sexual with men to the feelings that she had as a child with Uncle John.

Alice had to work through a lot of anger, sadness, and bitterness. Just talking about the abuse and knowing that she got emotionally and physically triggered whenever she was sexual was not enough to resolve her trauma.

Talking about it was only the beginning. Alice's therapist used EMDR therapy, which is a mind-body oriented psychotherapy, to work through the trauma. It took time and effort, but Alice was able to overcome her trauma and, eventually, she had a healthy relationship with a man that she met soon after that.

The psychological effects of childhood sexual trauma can occur at any time. Many people don't realize that the sexual abuse is effecting them, and they often blame themselves for any sexual difficulties that they have as adults.

Very often, regular talk therapy is not enough to overcome the trauma. It might provide you with intellectual insight about what happened and how it is effecting you, but it's often not enough to help you heal.

Mind-body oriented psychotherapy, like EMDR, is often more effective in overcome sexual trauma and trauma in general.

The fictionalized case that I presented is about a girl, but sexual abuse also occurs to boys. It can be just as confusing and depressing for a man to deal with these feelings when they are triggered as it is for a woman.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, you're not alone and you can overcome your trauma with help from a licensed mental health professional who specializes in this area.

To find out more about EMDR therapy, see my article:  EMDR Therapy - When Talk Therapy Isn't Enough.

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship

Parents, of course, want the best for their children, no matter how young or old they are.  In an ideal world, we would like them to be spared from heart break, disappointments, and the many potential pitfalls that are out there in the world.  

Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship

It's natural to want to spare them from making the same mistakes that we made.  But in order to maintain a healthy relationship with your adult children and allow them to learn and grow, you need to know when to let go and allow them to lead their own lives with a minimum of interference.  

Learn to Stop Interfering in Your Adult  Child's Relationship

This is one of the biggest challenges for parents of adult children--learning to let go, allowing them to make their own decisions, and not interfering in their lives.  This includes not interfering in their relationships with partners or spouses.

The healthiest scenario for small children is for their parents to allow them, over time, to make age-appropriate decisions, based on a particular child's maturity level and development.  So, for instance, we don't allow five year old children to make life changing decisions.  But we could allow them to choose their own clothes for the day and which books they would like to buy with their allowance money.

Learning to Let Go and Stop Interfering in Your Adult Child's Relationship

If, over time, children grow up with a sense of age-appropriate autonomy and develop good judgment, based on learning to make decisions and learning from mistakes, chances are that they will be better prepared as adults to make more important decisions, including choosing a life partner and being in an adult relationship.

If we're constantly telling our young children what to do and not allowing them to make even minor decisions, they are more likely to grow up lacking self confidence and not developing the basic skills necessary to make more important decisions when they are adults.

Does this mean that children who have parents who are always doing things for them and not allowing them to make any decisions for themselves are doomed as adults to make poor decisions about relationships and life in general?

No, it does not.  Even children who have had parents who tried to control their every move can learn as adults to make good decisions.  It just might be harder and might take them longer than children who've learned over time to gain self confidence and good judgment by starting to make age-appropriate decisions from a young age.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many different stories, is an example of a parent attempting to interfere inappropriately in her adult child's relationship:

Mary was in her mid-20s and when she and her new husband discovered that she was pregnant.  As a young mother, Mary felt very insecure and anxious.  She also became very controlling with her son, Ed, as he was growing up, but she had no awareness of this.

Her husband tried to talk to her about it, but she wouldn't listen.   She was so fearful that he would get hurt or make a mistake that she watched him like a hawk.  When they were at the playground, she repeatedly told him to be careful on the juggle gym and the slides.  She became upset when he fell and bruised his knees.

Ed's pediatrician and Mary's friends also tried to tell her that she needed to relax. But Mary couldn't help herself.  She wanted to spare her son of any kind of physical or emotional pain.  Of course, this was impossible.  And, as her husband, her friends, and the doctor tried to tell her, her anxiety and vigilance adversely affected Ed so that he was insecure whenever he had to do anything new or make even the smallest decision.  He looked to her to solve his problems and make decisions for him, which she was all too willing to do.

This began to change when Ed reached adolescence.  He became rebellious and resented Mary's intrusiveness.  He wanted to have more independence, but Mary was unable to allow it.  This led to power struggles between Mary and Ed.  Ed's father was somewhat passive and although he didn't agree with Mary, he had stopped trying to get her to see what she was doing.

Ed struggled with making decisions.  During his early days in high school, he began hanging out with a rough crowd and started cutting classes.  He refused to listen to Mary or his father because he wanted so much to prove to them that he was his own person.  He also refused to listen to his school guidance counselor when his grades began to slip.  But when one of his teenage friends died suddenly of alcohol poisoning, Ed was very badly shaken up, and he saw the wisdom of the adults' advice.  From that time on, he applied himself in school and he made friends with serious-minded students.  He salvaged his grades just in time to get accepted at the college of his choice in another state.

Mary didn't want Ed to attend college out of state, but he was 18 and, legally, he could make his own decisions.  In his senior year of college, he became seriously involved with Susan, a young woman in one of his classes.  When he told his parents, his father was happy, but Mary worried that Ed might be getting involved with the wrong person before she ever met Susan.

When Ed brought Susan home to meet his parents, the situation was tense.  Susan could tell immediately that, although Ed's father was welcoming, his mother was leery of her.  Susan couldn't understand why Mary didn't seem to like her.  Susan thought of herself as being a kind, level-headed and caring person from a good family.  She had goals for the future, which she hoped would include Ed.  She was confused by Mary's wariness--until Ed explained how Mary tried to control just about every aspect of his life.  But, he told Susan, he wouldn't allow Mary to control his relationship with her.

By the time they graduated, Ed and Susan both got good jobs close to their college, and they moved in together.  Mary, who had been hoping that Ed would move back home, was upset that he decided to remain out of state with Susan.  Mary tried to persuade Ed to forget about Susan and come back home.

All of this culminated in a big argument between Mary and Ed where he told her to "butt out" or he would sever his relationship with her.   He assured her that he meant it and he was prepared to cut her out of his life.  When she realized that Ed meant it, Mary was very shaken.  She didn't want to completely lose her son, so she had a lot of soul searching to do.

After much thought, Mary realized she needed help.  She consulted with a psychotherapist who helped Mary to see how her attempts to interfere in her son's life had led to the current state of affairs.  Over time, Mary was able to admit that she had made mistakes with Ed.  She began to see that she had projected her own insecurities onto her son and this caused Ed to feel angry and resentful.

Accepting that Ed was an adult and that she had to learn to let go and stop interfering in his life was not easy.  But Mary realized that her relationship with her son was at stake.  So, she made amends with Ed and Susan, and she vowed to stop interfering and to respect that they were adults capable of making their own decisions.  This went a long way toward healing the rift and allowing Mary and Ed to develop a relationship based on love and mutual respect.  It also allowed her to get to know and like Susan.  Mary also focused more on improving her relationship with her husband as well as focusing on her own self development.

Letting go of your adult child isn't easy, but it's necessary if you're going to develop a healthy relationship. Interfering and trying to control your child's life or his relationship can lead to disastrous emotional consequences.

Getting Help
If you find yourself interfering in your adult child's life and this is causing problems for your child and your parent-child relationship, you owe it to yourself and your child to get help from a licensed mental health practitioner who works with this issue.  It could make all the difference in the world for you and your child.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me
.

Erotic Transference for Group Leaders

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about the erotic transference that occurs in psychotherapy treatment where a client develops erotic feelings, often unconscious, for the therapist and vice versa.  This is a common phenomenon in psychotherapy and therapists who have psychoanalytic training are trained to deal with this issue, whether it's the client having erotic feelings for the therapist (more commonly) or the other way around.  Much has been written about the erotic transference in therapy.  But erotic transference can occur in groups as well where group members develop erotic feelings for the group leader.

The Erotic Transference of Group Leaders

Group Leaders Are Often Idealized
Group leaders, including schoolteachers, seminar instructors, college professors, and motivational speakers are often embued with certain idealized qualities by participants.  We're all familiar with the school girl or boy who develops a crush on the teacher.

The Erotic Transference of Group Leaders

These crushes can be very intense at times, consuming a student's thoughts with fantasies of going out on a date, having sex or having a romantic relationship with the teacher.  A teenage student might sit dreamy eyed in a classroom, staring at the teacher and thinkng about how wonderful the teacher is.  Most of the time, these crushes pass as teenagers develop the social skills to meet other students their own age and go on to have attainable relationships with their peers.

Erotic Transference for Rock Bands and Musical Groups
We also know that teenagers and young adults develop erotic transference for band members.  When I was 11 or 12, my friends and I used to debate about who was the handsomest and sexiest Beatle.   Some of us wrote stories about the particular Beatle that we liked (in my case, it was Paul McCartney) and then brought our stories into class to share with each other during lunch time.

We would fantasize about meeting our favorite Beatle and what that might be like.  It never once occurred to us that we really didn't know them and that they might be very different than our fantasies about them.

Other teens (and some adults) had an erotic transference for Tom Jones.  Few people of my generation would forget how young girls and women would throw their panties at him while he was on stage singng.  In prior generations, teenagers developed erotic transference for Elvis or Frank Sinatra.

Erotic Transference for Political Leaders
In politics, many women idealized and developed an erotic transference for President Kennedy, who was perceived as a young, handsome leader who would lead the nation into a new era.  He was compared to the legend of King Arthur of Camelot.

Similarly, many people have an erotic transference for President Obama, especially in 2008.  He was compared to President Kennedy and very idealized.

I remember going into a store in Manhattan at the time called East West Books and seeing a picture of President Obama up in the sky with an aura around him, as if he was a saint or a god.  I don't think anyone could live up to so much idealization, and we know that when those who idealized him were disappointed, many of them became disillusioned.  Politics aside, I believe that part of the problem was that, for many people, there was an illusion that he would be the nation's savior.  And who could blame anyone feeling that way given the problems in the country?  But whenever you put someone on a pedestal, whether it's a political leader or your romantic partner, there's no way to go but down.

Erotic Transference in Professional Small Groups
Erotic transference can occur in small group settings as well, even among psychotherapists.  As a psychotherapist, to keep up my skills and develop new skills, I attend professional trainings.  I find it very interesting to observe how therapists, who know about erotic transference, develop their own erotic transferential feelings for professional group leaders, in much the same way that young women develop crushes on rock stars.

For many people, even therapists, the erotic transference is like being  under a magic spell.   A group leader, who appeared to most people as being average looking before the workshop begins, is perceived as being very attractive, intelligent, sexy, and so on, once the workshop starts.  He or she is embued with all kinds of idealized qualities within the fantasies of the participants.  The participants often vie for the workshop leader's attention or want to sit next to him or her.

I remember one colleague telling me that she was in love with one of the workshop leaders, even though, in reality, neither she nor I knew him personally.  When I tactfully brought up the possibility that this could be an erotic transference, or at the very least an idealized transference, she rejected this  as being out of hand.  She was convinced that she loved him.  Inevitably, the spell was broken when he said something that disappointed her .

Erotic transference for group leaders is a common phenomenon.  Group leaders who are ethical don't take advantage of this because they know that this idealization is mostly fantasy, and it would be unethical for them to use it to manipulate or take advantage of the person (or people) with the erotic transference.

Erotic Transference in Group Therapy
Erotic transference also comes up in group therapy.  If a group therapist is properly trained, he or she, at the very least, won't engage in boundary violations.

Erotic Transference in Group Therapy

At best, the erotic transference can be used to explore the inner emotional world of a group member.  This needs to be handled with tact and respect  for all involved, especially the client with the erotic transference for the group therapist, and only if the client is ready and open to exploring it within the group or one-on-one with the therapist in a treatment environment that is safe for everyone involved.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see my articles:
Psychotherapy and Erotic Transference
Boundary Violations and Sexual Exploitation in Psychotherapy