
{"id":25875,"date":"2014-11-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=25875"},"modified":"2016-05-23T02:09:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T09:09:45","slug":"help-i-think-about-my-therapist-all-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/dear-gt\/help-i-cant-stop-thinking-about-my-therapist","title":{"rendered":"Help! I Can&#8217;t Stop Thinking about My Therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although I can\u2019t know what is happening in your therapy and how this may pertain to your question, clearly this is an important issue, and I hope you will discuss it directly with your therapist. I can understand that perhaps you feel reluctant to bring it up, but the ensuing conversation might be very helpful, and it could move the work you are doing together toward a deeper understanding of your relationship with her and, most importantly, with yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Any emotional reaction, especially one as pervasive as what you describe, contains clues that you want to identify and investigate. For example, at some stages of development <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/ocd\" target=\"_blank\">obsession<\/a> is quite natural, and your obsession might be pointing toward a difficult time in your life that needs work. Young children, for example, are obsessed with their caregivers, often their mothers. If this is the root of your issue, you might learn that there was a difficult experience in your childhood that needs to be looked at. Maybe when you were very young, a toddler or a baby, you had fears that your mother or another important person in your life might leave you, never to return\u2014that you might be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/abandonment\" target=\"_blank\">abandoned<\/a>. Perhaps you did in fact lose someone you loved. Teenagers, even adults, are sometimes obsessed with someone they see as a role model. They are obsessed because that person is someone they want to be and knows things they need to learn.<\/p>\n<div class=\"content-fatwidget align-left\">\n\t<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/find-therapist.html\" target=\"_blank\">Find a Therapist<\/a><\/h2>\n\t<form action=https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/search-redirect.html\" method=\"get\">\n\n\t\t\t<input required name=\"search[zipcode]\" placeholder=\"Enter ZIP or City\" class=\"inline-input\" type=\"text\" \/>\n\n\n\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" name=\"TOS agreement\" value=\" \" class=\"inline-btn\" title=\"Search\" onclick=\"ga('send', 'event', 'FAT Widget', 'Submit Search', 'Sidebar', {nonInteraction: true});\" \/>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/\/advanced-search.html\" title=\"Advanced Search\" onclick=\"ga('send', 'event', 'FAT Widget', 'Advanced Search', 'Sidebar', {nonInteraction: true});\">Advanced Search<\/a>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<p>An interesting aspect of therapy is an experience called \u201ctransference.\u201d Transference means that the feelings you have for someone important in your life are unconsciously transferred to another person\u2014in this case the therapist. We all have feelings like that; it\u2019s quite normal. For example, people at work often relate to the boss as if the boss was their father or mother, and they might not even know it. Or your irresponsible coworker might remind you of your younger brother or sister. It\u2019s helpful when we become aware of such feelings and then take care to recognize and correct them rather than simply reacting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/individual-therapy.html\" target=\"_blank\">Therapy<\/a> can help you do that.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about therapy, some of its general goals, and how they may apply to your situation.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Speak your mind to your therapist, without concern for feeling silly, looking stupid, being insulting, or whatever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/learn-about-therapy\/issues\/worry\" target=\"_blank\">worries<\/a> tend to stop you from speaking up. Honesty makes for a strong therapeutic relationship.<\/li>\n<li>There are many different kinds of obsessions\u2014obsession with the Internet, with sports, with movie stars, with teachers, even with one\u2019s therapist. A therapist, after all, is someone who is trying to help. It makes sense that we become attached to kind and helpful people. Who wouldn\u2019t? Maybe, for you, this is a rare experience of being truly understood, you can\u2019t quite believe it\u2019s real, and you don\u2019t want to let it go.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/love\" target=\"_blank\">love<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychpedia\/gratitude\" target=\"_blank\">gratitude<\/a> we feel when we are accepted and understood is boundless. Certainly, I feel greatly attached to my teachers, mentors, and therapists. The thought that these connections are partly real and partly transference is kind of sad. \u201cWhat,\u201d I might think, \u201cyou mean this isn\u2019t real?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>It is real, the feelings are real, but they are not to be acted on\u2014they are to be explored with words only. These feelings and the therapeutic relationship are on a different and special plane, apart from the everyday world in certain ways. That is the tragedy, glory, and power of any deep therapeutic relationship.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>How lovely that you have such strong feelings about your therapist. It means that you have been reached at a deep level, which has given you and your therapist a strong energic ground from which to proceed.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this has been helpful. Please let me know what you think. Take care!<\/p>\n<p>Respectfully,<br \/>\nLynn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lynn Somerstein, PhD, E-RYT, responds to our latest reader-submitted Dear GoodTherapy.org question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[522,228,25],"class_list":["post-25875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-goodtherapy","tag-dear-gt","tag-obsessions-compulsions-ocd","tag-psychotherapy-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}