Remembering Our Ancestors: Honoring the Dead Through the Lens of Remembrance and Rituals

As the leaves fall and the seasonal light shifts in New York City, many cultural traditions turn their attention toward the "thin veil between the living and the dead". 

Honoring our lineage through the lens of remembrance and rituals offers a path to healing. Reclaim your true self-worth and develop safe connection with Josephine Ferraro, LCSW in Greenwich Village, NYC 10011.

Far from being a time centered solely on heavy despair, cultural milestones like Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) remind us that remembering those who came before us can be a vibrant, life-affirming, and happy celebration filled with warmth, deep connection, and community resilience. 

I remember attending Dia de los Muertos in Malinalco, Mexico more than 10 years ago while attending an intensive dream workshop. These ceremonies were deeply moving. Everyone I met was warm and welcoming. They also invited my colleagues and I to honor their ancestors with music and celebration--even though they were meeting us for the first time.

Whether navigating the solemn reflections of All Souls’ Day or building vibrant ancestral altars for Dia de los Muertos, this specific time of year naturally invites us to examine our relationships with memory, loss, and family history.

In my Greenwich Village psychotherapy private practice, I frequently notice a collective shift during these autumn weeks. Clients often report a sudden surge in anxiety or an unexpected defensive hypervigilance.

Often, they do not initially link these heavy internal waves to the calendar. Yet, our nervous systems hold an implicit, biological memory of family lineage and history that speaks loudly when the external world goes dormant.

The Life-Affirming Wisdom of Ancestral Remembrance Rituals

Western society frequently rushes individuals past their history, treating the passage of time like a tool to forget or compartmentalize the past. This structural pressure forces many resilient adults to live entirely in their analytical minds, attempting to logic their way through complex relational histories.

Conversely, traditions like Día de los Muertos offer an integrated, systemic wisdom. They show us that honoring the dead is not about staying stuck in heavy sorrow, but about making space for celebration, storytelling, and enduring love. 

These rituals acknowledge an essential truth of the mind-body connection: maintaining an active, healthy relationship with where we come from releases the exhausting burdens of carrying unspoken family histories.

When we create a celebratory space to remember—whether by setting up an altar, lighting a candle, or sharing a joyful memory aloud—we translate abstract internal processing into an experiential physical action. 

This shift allows the protective, defensive parts of our personality to soften, moving the body out of an active threat-monitoring system and into a shared space of meaningful connection and emotional aliveness.

Relational Echoes: When Remembrance Intersects with Complex Family Trauma

Honoring the deceased can feel deeply complicated if your relationship with those ancestors was fractured by early complex trauma or parental splitting. 

If you grew up as the designated family scapegoat, navigating ancestral celebrations can trigger an intense internal conflict.

You might feel a heavy protective aspect of yourself caught between the cultural invitation to celebrate your lineage and the lived reality of the childhood invalidation you actually experienced. 

It is essential to recognize that true emotional healing allows room for paradox. You can honor the structural lineage of your survival while protecting your system from internalized generational shame.

Remembrance does not require you to distort your authentic truth or celebrate behaviors that hurt you. Healing means your calm, compassionate Core Self can safely acknowledge the complex history without allowing old family projections to dictate your present capacity for joy, peace, and secure self-worth.

Experiential Approaches to Navigating Seasonal Transitions

Because deep attachment injuries and ancestral patterns are anchored far beneath the conscious mind, traditional talk therapy alone often reaches a therapeutic impasse during these highly charged seasonal shifts. 

Reclaiming your true self-worth and releasing the survival stress locked in your nervous system requires an experiential, bottom-up framework:

• IFS Parts Work Therapy: We can gently map the internal system to uncouple from critical or anxious parts that feel overwhelmed by family-of-origin memories. This creates space to comfort the wounded inner child parts that still carry the raw burden of historical rejection or the agony of unlovability.
• Somatic Experiencing Therapy: This approach allows you to track how ancestral patterns and stress live in your body, slowly guiding your nervous system to release that locked-in survival contraction and expanding your overall window of tolerance.
• AEDP Therapy: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy allows us to process intense, complex emotional experiences in real-time alongside a supportive, affirming therapist. By processing family patterns directly in the safety of the office, AEDP fosters immediate somatic relief and a restorative sense of emotional aliveness.
• EMDR Therapy: Utilizing bilateral stimulation can help the subcortical brain reprocess stuck, distressing memories of family invalidation, safely stripping away the overwhelming emotional charge and updating your body with the adaptive truth that you are safe in the present.

You do not have to carry the weight of complex family history or generational trauma in isolation. You deserve to experience a felt sense of relational safety, grounding, and deep self-compassion as you navigate this reflective season.

Frequently Asked Questions About Family Lineage and Remembrance

Why Does My Anxiety and Overthinking Surge During This Specific Time of Year?

Your nervous system naturally registers changes in seasonal light, temperature, and cultural focus, which can trigger implicit memories of family history or anniversary reactions. In my Greenwich Village psychotherapy private practice, I see how these environmental shifts activate an automatic defensive cascade or a hypervigilant thought cycle if underlying family trauma remains unhealed. Experiential therapies help your mind and body differentiate between historical relational trauma and your present reality, lowering your internal threat-monitoring system (see my article: Experiential Therapy vs Traditional Talk Therapy: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective).

How Can I Participate in Ancestral Celebrations If My Lineage Was Fractured by Parental Splitting?

Remembrance and celebration do not require compliance with a false narrative or a violation of your personal boundaries. 

In my Manhattan practice, I help clients use IFS Parts Work Therapy to acknowledge the complex truth of their lineage without internalizing ancestral shame or old family projections.

True relational safety means you can hold your authentic true self-worth while allowing your system to process your history from a position of safety and self-compassion.

How Can I Create a Personal Remembrance Ritual If I Don't Have Family to Join Me?

Creating an individual ritual is a deeply powerful way to anchor a safe, secure connection to your memories. In my Greenwich Village private practice, I encourage clients to remember that ancestral rituals do not require a large gathering to be somatically restorative (see my article: The. Power of Creating Personal Rituals).

You can light a single candle, cook a favorite meal, or write a letter to your deceased relative from your calm, compassionate Core Self. Translating your internal reflections into an experiential, physical action allows your nervous system to safely process your family lineage from a position of absolute safety, privacy, and deep self-compassion.

👤 Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist and Trauma Specialist
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist and trauma therapist with over 25 years of clinical experience. 

I see individual adults and people in relationships in my psychotherapy private practice located at 412 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue), Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York, NY 10011. 

I offer a complimentary 15 minute phone call before setting up an initial appointment. My approach is experiential with advanced skills in:

• EMDR Therapy: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing helps the brain reprocess traumatic, stuck memories using bilateral stimulation, reducing the emotional distress and bodily anxiety associated with past events.

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy: A mind-body oriented therapeutic approach that helps release the stress and trauma locked in the nervous system, allowing you to move past chronic states of fight, flight, or freeze.

• IFS Parts Work Therapy: Internal Family Systems helps you explore and heal different internal "parts" of your personality—such as defensive, anxious, or wounded parts—to cultivate self-compassion and inner harmony.

• AEDP Therapy: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy focuses on processing difficult emotional experiences in real-time alongside a supportive therapist, fostering rapid healing through deep emotional connection.

• Clinical Hypnosis (Hypnotherapy): A therapeutic technique that uses guided relaxation and focused attention to access the unconscious mind, helping to uncover deep-seated patterns and reinforce positive behavioral changes.

In addition, I am an Emotionally Focused Therapist For Couples (EFT) and a Certified Sex Therapist.

Contact Me
To explore more or to make an appointment, contact me:

🌐 Visit My Website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

✉️ Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com

📞 Call: (917) 742-2624 (during standard business hours)

Healing From Family Scapegoating: How Trauma Therapy Heals the Unconscious Burden of Parental Splitting

When we look at repetitive patterns of emotional distress in adult relationships, the roots almost always trace back to early attachment years. In my Greenwich Village psychotherapy private practice, I frequently work with clients who are carrying an invisible, exhausting burden: the legacy of being cast as the "family scapegoat" (see my article: The Role of the Family Scapegoat).

To understand why one child is consistently blamed while another is idealized, we must look beneath surface behavioral problems and examine a complex systemic dynamic known as parental splitting.

The Anatomy of Parental Splitting: Golden Child and Scapegoat

Parental splitting occurs when a parent is unable to hold complex, ambivalent feelings—the natural understanding that human beings possess both strengths and flaws. Instead of viewing their children as integrated individuals, the parent utilizes projection as an unconscious defense mechanism to split their children into polar opposites.

This dynamic divides the family system into rigid, manufactured roles:

• The Golden Child: This sibling receives the parent's "all-good" projection. They are assigned the heavy burden of embodying all the parent's idealized traits, successes, and unfulfilled desires, often making their attachment security entirely conditional on flawless performance (see my article: The Role of the Golden Child).
• The Scapegoat: This sibling receives the parent's "all-bad" projection. They become the repository for the parent's split-off shame, inadequacy, and unacceptable internal feelings. Any friction, systemic family stress, or marital distress is blamed entirely on this child.

It is essential to recognize that being assigned the role of the scapegoat has absolutely nothing to do with an individual's authentic character or worth. It is a systemic projection, meaning the child is forced to carry this family burden so the parent can avoid looking at their own unmanageable internal distress.

From Childhood Invalidation to Adult Intimacy Fear

Growing up as the designated scapegoat subjects a developing nervous system to chronic emotional invalidation. When your earliest attachment figures repeatedly mirror back the message that you are problematic, flawed, or "too much," your body defaults to an automatic, defensive survival response.

While the intoxicating rush of "New Relationship Energy" (NRE) can temporarily mask these wounds in early adulthood, the emergence of deeper emotional intimacy inevitably triggers these early survival defenses.

True emotional closeness demands vulnerability—a state of being that can feel deeply threatening to a previously scapegoated adult. When childhood relational trauma remains unhealed, physical closeness can trigger an intense cycle of worry or protective hypervigilance. 

You may find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop, unconsciously expecting your partner to project the same rejection and blame onto you that your parents did.

Moving Beyond Logical Insight into True Healing

Many resilient adults spend years trying to think or analyze their way out of these painful family roles. However, because these early attachment injuries are anchored deep within the emotional brain, cognitive understanding alone is rarely enough to dissolve the psychological blocks keeping you stuck.

Healing from parental splitting requires an experiential approach that goes beyond talk therapy. Reclaim your true self-worth with Josephine Ferraro, LCSW in Greenwich Village, NYC 10011.

Real healing requires an experiential, bottom up approach to reclaim your true self-worth. In my New York City practice, I utilize advanced, mind-body oriented trauma therapies to help clients safely reprocess these generational burdens:

• IFS Parts Work Therapy: By uncoupling from the protective, critical internal parts that have internalized the parent's hostile voice, you can access your calm, compassionate Core Self and safely comfort the wounded inner child part that carries the burden of shame.
• EMDR Therapy: Utilizing bilateral stimulation allows the subcortical brain to reprocess stuck, raw memories of family invalidation, safely stripping away the emotional charge and updating the nervous system with the adaptive truth: It is over; I am safe and worthy now.
• AEDP Therapy: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy allows us to process the agonizing pain of childhood scapegoating by focusing on processing intense emotions in real-time alongside a deeply supportive, affirming therapist. Rather than leaving you to revisit old family rejection alone, AEDP creates immediate relational safety in the office, allowing you to move through heavy states of loneliness or unlovability and step directly into a felt sense of relief, somatic release, and new emotional aliveness.

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy: This approach allows the nervous system to gently release survival stress and hypervigilance locked in the body, expanding your window of tolerance and restoring a genuine state of aliveness, trust, and secure adult intimacy.

You do not have to settle for a life dictated by old family projections. You deserve to live ofree from generational shame, and anchored in deep self-awareness and relational safety.

Frequently Asked Questions About Parental Splitting

How Does Being Cast as the Family Scapegoat Affect My Adult Relationships?
Growing up under the chronic emotional invalidation of parental splitting primes your nervous system to expect blame and rejection from those you love. In my Greenwich Village psychotherapy private practice, I see how this attachment trauma triggers an automatic defensive cascade or protective hypervigilance when adult relationships transition into deep emotional intimacy. You may unconsciously tolerate toxic dynamics because they feel familiar, or conversely, withdraw into intimacy avoidance to protect your system from the anticipated pain of being pathologized or misunderstood.

What are the negative consequences of being cast as the "Golden Child" in a divided family?
While superficially favored, the golden child can be subjected to an extreme psychological boundary violation where their attachment security is entirely conditional on flawless compliance with the parent's idealized projection. In my Manhattan practice, I find that this traumatic enmeshment paralyzes a child's ability to develop an authentic true self, leading to intense adult performance anxiety, chronic low self-worth, and a severe internal threat monitoring system that fears any mistake will result in total emotional abandonment.

Can Experiential Trauma Therapy Truly Heal the Internalized Shame of Family Scapegoating?
Yes, because parental splitting alters your nervous system responses and early identity formation, healing requires an integrated approach that goes far beyond traditional talk therapy. In my Manhattan office, I use experiential, mind-body oriented approaches like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and IFS Parts Work to access the subcortical areas of the brain where raw memories of rejection are stored. Unpacking these dynamics in real-time allows your system to safely release historical survival stress, dissolve internalized generational shame, and retrain your mind and body to safely embrace closeness, self-compassion, and secure connection.

👤 Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist and Trauma Specialist
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist and trauma specialist with over 25 years of clinical experience. 

I see individual adults and people in relationships in my psychotherapy private practice located at 412 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue), Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York, NY 10011. 

I offer a complimentary 15 minute phone call before setting up an initial appointment. 

My approach is experiential (see my article: Experiential vs Traditional Talk Therapy: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective For Trauma Recovery).

I have advanced skills in:

• EMDR Therapy: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a mind-body oriented therapy that helps the brain reprocess traumatic, stuck memories using bilateral stimulation, reducing the emotional distress and bodily anxiety associated with past events.

• Somatic Experiencing Therapy: A mind-body oriented therapeutic approach that helps release the stress and trauma locked in the nervous system, allowing you to move past chronic states of fight, flight, or freeze.

• IFS Parts Work Therapy: Internal Family Systems helps you explore and heal different internal "parts" of your personality—such as defensive, anxious, or wounded parts—to cultivate self-compassion and inner harmony.

• AEDP Therapy: Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy focuses on processing difficult emotional experiences in real-time with a supportive therapist, fostering healing through deep emotional connection.

• Clinical Hypnosis (Hypnotherapy): A therapeutic technique that uses guided relaxation and focused attention to access the unconscious mind, helping to uncover deep-seated patterns and reinforce positive psychological changes.

In addition, I am an Emotionally Focused Therapist For Couples (EFT) and a Certified Sex Therapist.

Contact Me
To explore more or to make an appointment, contact me:

🌐 Visit My Website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

✉️ Email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com

📞 Call: (917) 742-2624 (during standard business hours)

Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: Falling "In Love" With Your Psychotherapist

When Freud first encountered the erotic transference among his patients, he was very concerned and he didn't think it was a useful part of treatment. But, as he continued to work with these patients and to explore the transference, he discovered that it was, in fact, a very useful part of psychoanalysis, and the transference could be worked through so that the patient could gain insight and grow in treatment.

Psychotherapists who are psychoanalysts have rigorous psychoanalytic training as well as years of their own psychoanalysis so that they are trained to work with the transferential aspects of therapy, including the erotic transference.

Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference

But, first let's understand what we mean by the word "transference" in the context of psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy.

What is Transference?
There are many explanations for transference but, basically, transference entails, primarily, unconscious feelings that clients develop for their psychotherapists where they usually "transfer" feelings related to their childhood. Transference can be positive, negative, idealized, erotic and so on.

Usually, the clients develop these transferential feelings based on unmet needs from their childhood, so that if their parents were cold and neglectful, they have a strong desire for the psychotherapist to fulfill these needs that weren't met by their parents.

When you consider that psychoanalytic clients meet with their psychoanalysts any where from 2-5 times per week, you can see how transference, in whatever form, would build up quickly. Psychoanalysts also usually delve into the most intimate aspects of a client's interior world, including dreams, which can also fuel transferential feelings.

Also, most psychoanalysts, especially at the beginning of treatment, don't reveal that much about themselves because transference is an important part of treatment. Since they want to work with the transference, they are unlikely to reveal a lot of personal information because the more a client knows about his or her therapist, the less room there is for transference to develop. So, the combination of the frequency of sessions, the intimate nature of what the client is sharing in the treatment, and the lack of information about the analyst (where there's lots of room for clients to project their fantasies) can create powerful transferential feelings.

Sometimes, clients' transferential feelings are not totally unconscious. They might be very aware of feelings that they're developing for the therapist, although they might not realize that the basis of these feelings is based on childhood experiences. This is all very common and part of what would be discussed in treatment.

Transference is not a phenomenon that is only found in treatment. In fact, it is a normal part of every day life in many areas of our lives. I'm sure that many of us can think of teachers that we had crushes on in school. This is also usually transference because it's a projection of the student's feelings for the teacher. Usually, students outgrow these crushes and, eventually, develop healthy relationships with their own peers.

What is Countertransference
I've chosen to focus on a particular type of transference in this blog article, namely, erotic transference, but I wanted to add a few words about countertransference. Countertransference is also a form of transference but, in the context of treatment, it's the transferential feelings that the therapist has for the client. Therapists who are psychoanalytically trained know that they will feel countertransference for some clients, and they often experience the same type of transferential feelings as clients do.

The big difference is that therapists who are psychoanalytically trained have the therapeutic skills to deal with these countertransferential feelings, and will usually recognize that it's not really about the client.

Rather, it can point to something that is lacking in their own lives, something from the past, or some unconscious feelings regarding their own unmet needs. Early on, in psychoanalytic training, psychoanalytic candidates in training use their own personal psychoanalysis and supervision to deal with these feelings and learn how to handle them without compromising the treatment. If countertransference becomes an issue for a therapist after his or her training, usually, he or she will seek professional guidance either in his or her personal therapy, in supervision, or among peers.

When psychoanalysts act on transferential and/or countertransferential feelings, rather than seeing them as a signal for work to be done with the client and/or with themselves, there can be boundary violations, especially sexual boundary violations, which I discussed in an earlier blog post. This type of boundary violation, whether it occurs during the treatment or after the treatment, is usually most harmful to the client. It can leave a client feeling devastated since these types of "relationships," which continue to be unequal even if the treatment is over, almost never work out.

There are some psychotherapists, who are not psychoanalytically trained, who are uncomfortable with clients' transference or their own countertransference, and they avoid dealing with it and don't know how to deal with it. This is usually detrimental to the treatment and has been the cause of many treatment failures.

What is the Erotic Transference?
The erotic transference is a particular form of transference that occurs when the client thinks that he or she has fallen in love with the therapist. Once again, as mentioned previously, feelings can develop quickly in psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy due to the intensity of the treatment.

Initially, this can be emotionally painful for clients because, an ethical psychotherapist who maintains the treatment frame, won't gratify these erotic transferential feelings and fantasies, so that clients feel a yearning for their therapists that cannot be satisfied. These feelings are explored in treatment and, usually, as previously mentioned, they have their origins in unmet childhood needs.

It's easy to see how someone who grew up in a home where their emotional needs were not met or not sufficiently met, for whatever reason, would feel like he or she is falling in love with the therapist who is spending so much time listening to his or her most innermost feelings. The early yearning to have these needs met can come roaring to the surface very quickly. Many times, clients have repressed (pushed down) these needs for so long that. before starting treatment, they might not even be aware that they still have these needs. Then, lo and behold, these needs are tapped into and they often erupt with full force.

Note that I emphasized that this can be part of the initial part of treatment. The reason for this is that a skilled psychoanalytically trained therapist will use these transferential feelings not only to explore those unmet needs but also to help the client to develop healthy relationships outside of treatment where those needs can be met. So, although it can be initially painful to feel unrequited love as part of the erotic transference, the client is helped to develop into an adult who can have his or her needs met.

The erotic transference can occur regardless of the client's and therapist's gender or sexual orientation. That means that a heterosexual woman can develop an erotic transference for a heterosexual female therapist, even if this client never had erotic or romantic feelings for women in the past.

It can also occur with a heterosexual man and a gay therapist, even if the client never had sexual or romantic feelings for gay men before. A gay male client can develop an erotic transference for a heterosexual female therapist. And so on. This can be very confusing for clients and, at times, causes them to question their sexual orientation. But, most often, especially if they're not having these romantic and sexual feelings outside of treatment, it's not about a change in their sexual orientation. It's usually about unmet childhood needs and, as an adult, these needs can be transformed into romantic and/or sexual feelings for the therapist.

In a successful psychoanalytic or psychodynamic treatment, the client matures into a person who can work through these early unmet needs and find mature love among his or her own peers rather than continuing to fantasize about the therapist.

But it would be misleading to say that this happens quickly in every psychoanalytic of psychodynamic treatment or that, for some people, it happens at all. Some clients can spend years feeling that they're in love with their therapists and not understanding why the therapist is not willing to satisfy their needs by seeing them outside of the therapy sessions or going out with them or telling them about personal aspects of the therapist's life.

If a therapist is not able to help a client work through the transference so that the client can transfer his or her feelings from the therapist to a healthy, mature relationship with a peer, the therapist might have to refer the client to a different therapist to work out these issues. This can feel very rejecting to the client, who might not understand why this is necessary, but it is sometimes necessary and preferable to allowing a client to spend year after year feeling deprived because his or her therapist won't gratify his erotic or romantic needs.

The fictionalized vignette below demonstrates how the erotic transference can develop in a psychoanalytic treatment. As an aside, I also want to reiterate that, although I'm focusing on psychoanalytic and psychodynamic treatment, transference can develop in any type of therapy and, overall, transference out in the world (outside of the treatment setting) is ubiquitous.

Terry:
When Terry began treatment, she had just ended her third long-term relationship with a man who turned out to be cold and distant. She felt depressed and "a failure" because she continued to choose men who didn't meet her emotional needs.

Terry chose a woman psychotherapist who was recommended to her by her doctor. During the initial few visits, the therapist asked Terry about her childhood history, and Terry recounted a childhood where her parents provided her with everything that she needed and wanted materially, but they were emotionally distant. Whenever she wanted to talk to her parents, they were too preoccupied with other things to listen to her. As an only child, Terry grew up feeling lonely. She loved to go visit her best friend's home because her friend's mother was very warm and affectionate. Terry used to secretly wish that her friend's mother would become her mother.

Since Terry was significantly depressed (although not suicidal), Terry and her therapist agreed to meet three times a week. As the treatment went on, Terry described how she had never felt that anyone close to her ever really listened to her. She was tired of going out with men who turned out to be so much like her parents, and she couldn't understand the unconscious process that compelled her to continue to choose the same type of man over and over again.

After a few weeks, Terry really began to look forward to her therapy sessions. Her therapist provided a safe and nonjudgmental environment for Terry to express her innermost feelings. Terry told her therapist about thoughts and feelings that she had never revealed to anyone else in her life, and she was amazed at how easily she was able to do this with her therapist. Most of all, she felt that her therapist was caring, attentive and really listened to her in a way that she had never been listened to before.

Soon after that, Terry began having erotic dreams about her therapist. These dreams made her feel very frightened, confused, and embarrassed because she considered herself to be heterosexual, and she had never had romantic or erotic feelings for a woman before. She had gay and lesbian friends, and she didn't think she was prejudice against gays. She was just bewildered by these dreams and wished that she would stop having them.

Terry also began to notice that she was ruminating about her therapist between sessions, wondering what she was doing and with whom. She fantasized about meeting her therapist outside of their sessions for dinner and getting to know her therapist personally. When her fantasies turned erotic, she began to worry because now she was having erotic feelings for her therapist in her dreams as well as her waking hours. In fact, she worried because she was feeling obsessed.

At that point, whenever she went to therapy, she wished that the session wouldn't end. She looked at her therapist's ring finger to see if she was wearing a wedding ring, but she saw no signs of whether her therapist was married or had a significant other. She felt that, at least, if she knew that her therapist was married, maybe she could stop ruminating about her day and night.

When her therapy session ended and Terry walked out into the waiting room and saw the next client about to go in to see the therapist, she felt jealous. On an emotional level, she wanted the therapist to only spend time with her and it was painful to think that she had to share her with other clients. On a rational level, Terry could step back and look at her feelings and know that they were irrational, but she couldn't stop them.

She had fantasies about standing across the street from her therapist's office, somewhere where the therapist couldn't see her, and waiting to see where she went or if she met up with a husband or lover. She felt that her curiosity and yearning to know more about her therapist's life was overwhelming. And, although she often had this fantasy, she never gave into it because she didn't want to feel like a stalker.

Finally, one day when Terry couldn't tolerate having these erotic feelings for her therapist any more, with much hesitation and embarrassment, she told her therapist about her erotic feelings. Part of her hoped that her therapist would tell her that she felt the same way about her, which she also knew would be terrifying for her. Another part of her was afraid that her therapist would think this was highly inappropriate and she would need treatment with Terry.

Terry's therapist listened intently to what Terry had to say. Terry became tearful because she was confused about what this meant about their therapeutic relationship and also what it meant in terms of Terry's sexual orientation. Terry poured out all the feelings that she had been holding back and allowed her tears to flow.

After she finished, Terry raised her eyes for the first time during that session to meet her therapist's eyes. What she saw was the same empathetic and compassionate look that her therapist usually had. She breathed a sigh of relief that, at least, her therapist wasn't throwing her out of the office. Then, her therapist talked to Terry about transference and, in particular, the erotic transference. Terry was surprised to hear that this is a very common experience in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy. At least, she knew that she was not some odd ball and that many other clients in therapy experienced the same feelings. Most importantly. she learned that most clients work through these feelings as they learn to develop healthy, romantic relationships outside of treatment.

Terry and her therapist continued to explore these feelings as they related to her unmet childhood needs. Terry did a lot of grieving for what she didn't get when she was growing up. Over time, she also learned to accept that her parents, who would never even think of getting into their own therapy, probably would not change. This is often a very hard part of treatment for many clients who still hold onto the wish, no matter how impossible it might seem, that one day their parents would change.

In the meantime, Terry began to date again. Whenever she started to see a man who turned out to be cold and distant as all the other men she dated, she wished that she could be in a romantic relationship with her therapist. Sometimes, these feelings were so strong that she felt they were unbearable. Although she still really didn't know if her therapist was heterosexual or a lesbian and she didn't know if her therapist was in a relationship, she fantasized about her therapist being a single lesbian.

Although she understood that she and her therapist couldn't be romantically or sexually involved while she was still in treatment, she now had fantasies that they could be together after the treatment ended. She even had thoughts about terminating the treatment with her therapist and seeing a different therapist so that she and her current therapist could be together.

This thought made her feel happy and excited her sexually as well. She no longer cared if she considered herself to be heterosexual or a lesbian. It didn't matter. All she could think about at that point was that she and her therapist could be so happy together if she was no longer in treatment with her. She thought to herself, "Why didn't I think about this before? Surely, my therapist must recognize that there's a special feeling between us. She's too ethical to pursue this feeling while I'm in treatment with her, but she'd have no reason not to be with me if I was in treatment with someone else."

Terry was very excited on the day when she decided to bring this up in her psychotherapy session. She had fantasies about having romantic candlelight dinners with her therapist, being sexually intimate, and, in time, even living together. So, when she brought up her feelings about this in therapy, as always, her therapist listened to her intently. Terry was so happy to have someone finally listen to her as if she was the only person in the world, and she imagined how wonderful this would be to experience all the time, and not for 45 minutes several times a week.

Once again, Terry's therapist acknowledged that it is not at all unusual for a client to have these feelings and, in fact, many clients had these feelings. Then, she proceeded to explain to Terry how, even after their treatment ended, whenever it ended, they could never be together or have anything but a therapeutic relationship because it would ruin the treatment that they had together. Also, she explained that these romantic and sexual feelings that Terry had, while very strong, were still based on her unmet childhood needs. And a relationship between a former therapist and a former client would be disastrous for the client.

Even though her therapist normalized her feelings, Terry was extremely disappointed. She thought she had found a way to be with her therapist, only to be rejected. This was the subject of many sessions after that session. Terry's therapist was also able to help her connect her current feelings to her earlier feelings connected to the childhood emotional neglect.

As treatment continued, Terry began to feel deep down that she deserved to be with someone who was emotionally available to her. Since she didn't have attractions for women outside of her therapy sessions, she continued to date men and talk about these experiences in her therapy. She still held onto a wish that her therapist would eventually change her mind and get romantically involved with Terry after the treatment was over. But she also began to choose men who were more emotionally attuned to her.

Several months later, Terry met a man that she really liked and who was very kind and generous with her. Unlike her other relationships, he was attentive and also reciprocated her feelings. Initially, she was almost too afraid to get excited about this man because she feared that she would get disappointed and hurt like she had in the past. But, as she continued to see him, their relationship developed and became more intimate.

At first, Terry felt like she was "cheating" on her therapist, although, rationally, she knew this wasn't true. But, until then, most of her erotic dreams and fantasies had been about her therapist, and it had been the most intense relationship (albeit it a therapeutic relationship) that she had ever had.

Unlike her mother, who had almost never shown much concern for Terry's emotional well being, Terry sensed that her therapist was happy for her that she had met someone that she really cared about and who really cared about her.

As Terry continued to see this man and continued to talk about it in her therapy, gradually, over time, she realized that her feelings for her therapist were changing. Although she felt a deep caring for her therapist, she no longer had romantic or sexual feelings for her therapist.

This surprised Terry greatly because, when she was obsessing about her therapist, she thought these feelings would never change and she worried about what it might be like to terminate treatment and never see her therapist again. Whenever she had those feelings, she worried that she had become "too dependent" on her therapist. But much to her surprise, over time, she was beginning to feel that she could foresee a time when she could end treatment and be all right about it.

When she discussed this with her therapist, her therapist assured her that, even after she ended this treatment, if she felt that she wanted to work out other issues that had come up after this treatment was over, she could return to see her. She also told Terry that it wasn't unusual for people to return to their therapists after years of being away from treatment. She also told her that Terry had the option in the future of seeing a different therapist, possible someone who worked differently, to get a different perspective.

Soon after that, Terry and her therapist went through the termination process, which lasted a few months. During that time, they saw each other less frequently. They processed the therapy in a way that gave closure to their therapeutic relationship. During that time, Terry realized that her feelings for her therapist had changed to no longer feeling at all erotic, romantic or idealized in any way. Rather, she saw her therapist as being an ordinary person who happened to be very skilled at her work. And, when she looked back at her erotic transferential feelings, she was glad that her therapist was ethical, and maintained the therapeutic frame in a safe and empathic environment.

Terry and her boyfriend eventually got married and, overall, she was happy. After a few years, she returned to see her former therapist for brief treatment to work through particular issues. She was grateful to be able to return for treatment whenever she needed it. And rather than feeling caught up in transferential feelings that were based on unmet childhood needs, she felt that she was with a capable mental health professional who could help her to overcome these problems.

About the Fictionalized Scenario 
The fictionalized scenario that I presented above is one example, among many different types of situations, of the erotic transference and how it might appear in treatment and get worked through. There are times when clients, who feel too uncomfortable with their erotic and romantic feelings for their therapist, leave treatment and never work through these issues or the unmet childhood needs that tend to fuel these feelings.

While there are certainly times, especially if a psychotherapist is crossing professional boundaries, where clients should leave treatment before transferential feelings are worked through (and work them through with another more professional and ethical therapist), most of the time, it is beneficial to stay in treatment and get to the early core issues that are at the heart of the matter.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're overwhelmed with problems that you've been unable to resolve on your own, you could benefit from seeing a licensed mental health professional who can help you to work through these issues so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

Frequently Asked Questions About Erotic Transference in Psychotherapy

Is it normal to feel like I am falling in love with my therapist?
Yes, developing romantic or sexual feelings for your psychotherapist—known as erotic transference—is a very common and valuable dynamic in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy. In my Greenwich Village private practice, I provide a secure space to safely explore these powerful feelings, which often stem from deep-seated, unmet childhood needs and projections held within the unconscious mind. Rather than a barrier, a skilled psychodynamic therapist views this dynamic as an essential catalyst for deeper self-awareness, allowing us to reprocess the original vulnerability so you can form healthy, fulfilling adult relationships outside of the clinical setting.

How does a psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist handle intense client transference without breaking clinical boundaries?
A psychotherapist who has undergone rigorous psychoanalytic training and extensive personal analysis is uniquely equipped to navigate both client transference and their own internal countertransference responses. Instead of avoiding these intense emotional experiences or allowing a defensive cascade to compromise the treatment frame, I utilize these clinical dynamics as professional guideposts to help you gain profound insight. In my Manhattan office, maintaining absolute ethical boundaries and a consistent therapeutic frame is what transforms what initially feels like a cycle of worry or unrequited yearning into an authentic path toward emotional resolution and clinical growth.

About Me
I am a licensed psychotherapist in New York City, who is psychoanalytically trained.

Since my psychoanalytic training, I have also developed expertise in other treatment modalities, including EMDR, clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing, IFS, AEDP, EFT and Sex Therapy.  

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

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

I offer a free 15 minute call before setting up an initial appointment.

I see clients in person in my Greenwich Village, New York City (10011) office and online throughout NYS.

You can reach me at (917) 742-2624 during standard business hours or send me an email: josephineferraro@iCloud.com