The client is convinced that only when the therapist satisfies his/her needs and cravings the real happiness can be achieved.
The reason why one client develops a positive transference and another does not has a lot to do with the client’s diagnosis and therefore, with the types of things they experienced from their earliest life. A person who may have felt ignored or neglected by their parents may become someone who has endless cravings that are placed onto the therapist. In this type of scenario, the client actually believes that the therapist has the power to gratify these wishes and that such gratification would be curative. Of course, this is never true.
Transference occurs in all types of psychotherapy. Therapists who use cognitive behavioral therapy, brief psychotherapy, family therapy and group therapy, can become the target of transference feelings and wishes. In the other types of therapy, the therapist does not focus on transference. In these cases, there is no need to intensity the therapeutic relationship because that is not the goal of the treatment. Instead, the focus is on the here and now in the life of the patient and not on the past.
It is only in psychoanalysis or long term psychoanalytic therapy that the transference is discussed in detail and resolved before the patient is ready to leave treatment. One of the major features of psychoanalytic therapy is that it is very intense. That intensity is fostered by the fact patient and therapist meet three or more times per week. When patient and therapist discuss the transference treatment is further intensified.
The therapist must be fully aware of the power of the patients transference feelings and never allow him or herself to be seduced and act upon those feelings. For one thing, patient transference emotions are not realistic. Instead of acting, the therapist must provide a safe and secure environment in which relationship problems can be unraveled, and understood in order that this person can resume their lives in ways that are healthier and more fulfilling than previously.
Well this is a complex issue..Zaira Khan
psychology763 