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Post by findmyway on Jul 23, 2011 5:21:57 GMT -8
Hi All, I'm new to the group. I'm a recovering alchoholic and drug addict since April 2001. Clean and sober since then. I'm also a Love addict and would fit the catagory of Avoidant and at times obsessive. The love addiction is a new issue that I'm working on. I got into therapy 2 years ago with a therapist who works with addictions of all kinds and is a recovering sex addict himself and with him I have been working on my underlying childhood abuse and molestation issues. We are also working in group therapy and he has been very consistent and very helpful to me and so have my group members. My scenario and big questions are this....I already knew going into therapy about transference and counter-transference among client and therapist...so I try my best to keep my own romantic emotions and feelings ''in check''. I can quickly drift off into an emotional fantasy with him If I wanted but again..I know how my mind operates so I quickly attempt to block that out but it's soooo difficult. However, I feel that he equally has feelings and an attraction going on in his own head . It's just one of those gut feelings I get when I sit with him but then I say to myself maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm such a fantasy addict that I'm making it up in my head? However, He has asked me to meet him, on a few occasions, outside of our therapy sessions but I never allowed myself to take him up on his invitation. He has had male clients that he sort of socialized with outside of therapy so perhaps I'm overthinking his invitations? But I seriously feel he has a seductive way about him at times . I feel we are both playing this un-said seductive dance but neither one of us has really acted on it. I find it difficult to not be tempted..What should I do? Confront him about what I feel? Just leave it alone? Sometimes, I even think of leaving therapy with him because it gets too difficult for me to have feelings for him and then try and have other male relationships outside of him. What would be the healthy thing to do? Being an avoidant I want to flee the scene and drop out of therapy to find another therapist but that doesn't feel right either.  Can anyone shed some light for me? I can use some advice. Has anyone had experience with something like this? Thank you in advance. |
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Post by findmyway on Jul 23, 2011 6:11:13 GMT -8
Oh and how can I forget this little tid bit of information....He is MARRIED and has left his wife in the past but he did his own recovery work and worked on his marriage. In the back of my head I say, the past dictates the future. So in my opinion he is capable breaking boundaries.
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Post by Healing Ku'uipo on Jul 23, 2011 6:25:07 GMT -8
I definetly think your problem is real and not just "all in your head" . If you are seeing a therapist about Love addiction and are currently in love addiction with him then how will you get sober?
My suggestion is the old AA moto Your only as sick as your secrets. Tell him what's going on. Bring a friend with you if you feel scared. Put what's going on for you on the table.
If it is your Love Addiction fantasy going crazy and he does not have any thoughts about you, then you will get closer to another layer of Your addiction.And if there is a mutual issue going on. Leave. Go find a woman therapist.
Be selfish in your recovery. Make Taking care of yourself a priority!
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Post by leebriar on Jul 23, 2011 10:13:03 GMT -8
As therapists we have a code of ethics that must be followed. We are required to take a certain number of ethics education continuing education classes in order to be reminded periodically about the importance of these ethics we follow. The ethics are in place to protect the client as well as the therapist.
If this therapist is seeing any of his clients outside of his practice, or inviting you to participate in this, he is not following ethics and is a danger to the clients he is serving.
Personally I would discontinue services with him and file a grievance with the board for which he is licensed. These types of professionals are a detriment to their clients. He is taking advantage of his position and the fragility of his clients...as they say in the program, some are sicker then others and this sort of behavior from professionals is about s sick as it gets, in my opinion.
Follow your gut instincts, your right on track.
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jul 23, 2011 13:39:19 GMT -8
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Post by sunflwrs4evr on Jul 23, 2011 14:58:04 GMT -8
hello findmyway...my first gut instinct was that it's unethical of him..as a professional...what Leebriar has said is the absolute truth............i agree 110%....i am working on my masters degree for LPC= License Professional Counselor....I would do exactly what she has said....and find another therapist....asap....i wouldnt even go back to see him....
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jul 23, 2011 15:52:39 GMT -8
As therapists we have a code of ethics that must be followed. We are required to take a certain number of ethics education continuing education classes in order to be reminded periodically about the importance of these ethics we follow. The ethics are in place to protect the client as well as the therapist. If this therapist is seeing any of his clients outside of his practice, or inviting you to participate in this, he is not following ethics and is a danger to the clients he is serving. Personally I would discontinue services with him and file a grievance with the board for which he is licensed. These types of professionals are a detriment to their clients. He is taking advantage of his position and the fragility of his clients...as they say in the program, some are sicker then others and this sort of behavior from professionals is about s sick as it gets, in my opinion. Follow your gut instincts, your right on track. I quite agree. My first therapy session was court-ordered (1968). My therapist was supposed to help me with my self-esteem. I had been arrested for prostitution and needed to work on my shame. What did he do. He offered me money for going to bed with him. This was in 1968 way before I knew what recovery was so I agreed feeling honored that he wanted me. I got pregnant and for 9 months thought it was his. It was one of the most devastating experiences I have ever had. Leave this guy and find a woman therapist. |
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Post by soulseeker on Jul 23, 2011 21:08:16 GMT -8
I agree about trusting your instincts on this...if it were me, I would not go back.
Butterflygirl, you never cease to amaze me with your strength and honesty. You are a incredible source for this board.
Thank you for creating this safe place for us LA's and defining the many styles of our problem. It has been a huge part of my recovery.
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Post by runrunrun on Jul 24, 2011 2:57:10 GMT -8
I would say find another therapist or better yet find a female sponsor for Love or sex addiction. I find that sponsors help a lot more than therapists. And they are free.
RRR
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Post by Havefaith on Jul 24, 2011 5:27:37 GMT -8
Yes, a sponsor is 'free' -- but make certain you find one that is committed -- sponsorship services require time and effort -- a responsibility not to be taken lightly.
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Post by findmyway on Jul 24, 2011 6:25:42 GMT -8
You all have been so wonderful and honest. Thank you so much for the feedack. I needed this. Butterflygirl, I'm so greatful that you shared yourself and experience. It means a lot to me. I ordered the book on Amazon. I also looked up the dynamics of Erotic Transference. I had no idea this is something that can occur between client and therapist. I do need to confront him though. It will feel like I'm short changing myself if I don't say anything and simply leave. Thank you all  |
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Post by findmyway on Jul 24, 2011 10:48:14 GMT -8
Butterflygirl...just have to say this about that therapist you had...what a freakin sicko he was. I have some thoughts in my head about him and would love to say it but i know it's not allowed here. I can imagine how devastating that was for you.
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jul 24, 2011 12:46:00 GMT -8
Beware of low self-esteem.
Find yourself. Love yourself.
Then no one trample on you again.
You have a savior and it is you. |
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jul 24, 2011 12:51:38 GMT -8
He may be in denial when you confront him and try to tell you this all in your imagination. He may have downgraded from sex addict to flirt and really does all this sub-consciously. Or he thinks being just a flirt is not so bad. Whatever. His boundaries are skewed. So whatever he says in his defense don't back down. You are right and he is wrong. Period. Ask Lucy . . .
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jul 24, 2011 14:05:56 GMT -8
I have to finish the story. Fast forward 30 years. I am in therapy again with a man. The erotic transference rears its ugly head six months into the therapy. I was with a very strict therapist. I new nothing about his personal life. He would not even tell me his middle name. I confided in him that I wanted to have sex with him. At first he chalked it up to the repetition compulsion (wanting to re-live the past trauma in order to heal) and he was right to a point. He thought I wanted to explore the sexual relationship I had with my first therapist. But it went further back than that. I was embarrassed. Was this a slip? He asked me why I wanted to have sex with him? I made something up. He asked again. I made something else up. He kept pushing. I finally blurted out an amazing freudian slip. I said, "I want you to pick up where my father left off." That night I had a flash back of my father coming into my room at night to touch me. I learned from this that my father aroused me and then left me. When you mix incest and abandonment you come up with a very damaged person. When I came out of the flash back I found myself in the kitchen eating from a bag of potato chips like a robot. So, I also learned that I eat to stuff my shame and stay overweight so no one will be attracted to me. After analyzing all this for months I left this therapist and went to a woman. I had learned so much from the erotic transference and it was time to move on. But I am grateful for what I learned. One warning. According to Deborah Lott, erotic transference can happen between a woman and her female therapist. So learn and move on before you get hurt. If my therapist did not have the boundaries he did, God knows what I would have done Here in an online article about transference. blogs.psychcentral.com/unplugged/2009/09/unrequited-transference-eight-ways-to-know-you-are-in-love-with-your-therapist/ |
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Post by findmyway on Jul 25, 2011 1:16:06 GMT -8
Thank you soooo much for sharing Kitty and again Butterflygirl. I was in therapy with a woman who had to terminate our relationship due to her illness and she was getting ready for retirement. We had a decent relationship so going to a male therapist was/is a new experience for me. I avoided going to a male because I knew never having a father that I may ''go there'' with a man in a care taker role. I never had any sexual feelings for my previous therapist so going through this is sooooooo different and sends me on an emotional rollar coaster ride. I get so confused sometimes and I feel like screaming with frustration. Well, I better get ready for work. Will be back to respond in more detail and look at that link. Thank you again for sharing yourself Butterflygirl.
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Post by leebriar on Jul 25, 2011 4:00:28 GMT -8
This transference issue can happen for many of us. As a therapist it is my responcibility to see it, acknowledge it and at times in my professional career have had to transfer clients/patients to another therapist when it hsa come up. Usually it can be managed if the therapist has good healthy professional boundaries but as humans, even therapists can get caught up in the toxicity.
As I mentioned ethics are in place as a protection for both the patient and the therapist. Some have shared here their victimization as the patient. Heres the other side of the coin. I had a therapist working for me who became intimately involved with her male patient. ( which I was unaware of until events unfolded) Following his treatment he moved in with her and her small child. Things went bad quickly as he stopped working his program, relapsed and all the behaviors that go with drug and alcohol relapse came into play. Long story short, when she tried to end the relationship with him and get him out of her house, he shot her in the head in front of her eight year old daughter! She survived thank God, but is a reminder to all of us working in this field...Ethics are there for a reasson! What we do...it is not play....it is very very serious with serious consequences to our patients and ourselves when they are not followed.
My advice still stands. do not return to this therapist. Write him a letter ifyou feel the need to speak your mind. Find a female therapist that comes recommended by other women you know. Protect yourself. File a greivance with the licensing board so no other women are victimized. This may all seem harsh but I really believe we need to take a stand against the predators in the helping fields.
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Post by findmyway on Jul 25, 2011 17:26:42 GMT -8
Wow, thanks for sharing that Leebriar. I know what you are saying and don't think it's harsh. I certainly appreciate your concern, not just for me, but other women too. Believe me, I have thought of just not going back at all. I also thought about my confrontation being twisted that I'm imagining it. He also knows how I always blame myself first. He knows so much about but i'm not easily manipulated. I need to find someone new.....a female therapist.
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Post by sillypoppet on Jul 26, 2011 10:03:06 GMT -8
Interesting post...
Because of the nature of love addiction, personally I have chosen female therapists only (aside from the fact that I would be so embarrassed to discuss my sexuality with a male). I won't even go to an SLAA meeting that is Co-Ed because it can border on being a pick-up place rather than a place of healing.
What your therapist is doing is UNETHICAL. I was shocked when I read what he was doing... that is completely UNPROFESSIONAL and dangerous to your emotional health. I'm not even sure why he felt the need to share his marital issues with you. Personally, I think disclosures should be used very carefully. If you were to report his behavior, this guy could technically lose his license. There are a slew of codes in the American Counseling Association Ethics that he violated.
I'm so glad that you are looking for a new therapist... Let us know how it goes finding someone new! :-)
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Post by findmyway on Jul 27, 2011 3:27:20 GMT -8
Thanks Sillypoppet.....SOmetimes when I sit with him I get in such a seductive mode I don't know how to snap out of it. He certainly doesn't try to stop me either. Actually, he pushes me for more explicit details once i start hesitating. SOmetimes midway through a story I stop myself and say.....why am I sharing this and in such detail....too much information but he will say ''oh come on, it's only me here''....Honestly though, I think he's just a human being who got caught up in it. I just need to move on and write him a letter as to why I left. I'm so glad I posted this issue here. Sitting in silence would have only fed the addictive nature of it.
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Post by bklynrn on Sept 7, 2011 6:37:55 GMT -8
So I followed this thread when findmyway first started it and it triggered up my own budding concerns with my therapist. I just finished the book that Butterflygirl recommended ''In Session''...GREAT READ and any woman in therapy would get something from this book and learn something about transferece in a very real way. Now, my question is what to do with my transference?? I can be quiet seductive sometimes. I'm aware of it and it's roots. I know my therapist has his own countertransference and a part of me feels that he,like findmyway's therapist, gets a certain charge out of my sexual details. That is not therapuetic and only serves his needs. Though i did some research and from this book there is a lot to be gained from the dynamics of transference and countertransference IF healthy boundaries( on the therapist's part) are in place. I'm going to bring this book to my therapist's attention today and tell him about my concerns with him. He may deny or minimize them and I'm prepared for that but he may also decide to have us work together with the feelings that are coming up. I think that would help me most rather than leaving therapy.
Here's a quote from the book that had me in tears....'' I want to be touched and I don't want to be touched. I want it to be sexual and I don't want it to be sexual. There is a child in me, a child wanting to be held but afraid of being molested and a woman wanting to express love and unable to do so without making it sexual''....that quote sums me up. Such a battle of the childlike mind and the adult mind. A very powerful conflict that drives my addiction and pattern of ambivelance
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Post by akinrecovery on Oct 28, 2011 12:38:26 GMT -8
I jumped on this thread because I feel I have issues with my therapist. In the past I did tell him if I had sexual desires and he said "He has no such thoughts and he made a conscious choice no to go there". So all my fantasies died but I have a bad feeling about the whole thing that he might be taking advantage and control over me in some way. He has given me resentfull (jealous)looks in the past and sometimes gets like a little boy. Something in me is telling me he is a wounded child as well and has not recovered. I do feel therapy works. I feel that I have a block with him beacuse of that. I have a dream which I mentioned and he looked at me in a way that was rejecting and have manifested his suggestions instead of mine. I dont kow if he is a non loser(meaning a non doer) and stops others from meeting theirs a sabbotagger. I have these suspicions as I realised I was doing his will then mine. Time to move on I think
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Post by sunflwrs4evr on Oct 30, 2011 22:21:30 GMT -8
i think u are right too.....akinrecovery....its time to move on..that shows some recovery....
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Post by margot on Oct 31, 2011 5:04:24 GMT -8
There is no way I can go to a male therapist, too, too much there to interfere, especially with the trust issues. I just can't do it and totally refuse to. It's one of my values - no men therapists. I also find it difficult to contemplate going into a co-ed AA meeting but I'm going to have to soon. There is only 1 womens-only meeting around here and I need more than once per week. I've really been having a go round with it mentally.
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Post by Loving My Life on Oct 31, 2011 5:41:11 GMT -8
margot, just start going to your meetings, sometimes they dont advertise all the meetings, and you might find some women only groups, it is alot of comfort to be with others who are going thru the same things as we are. let us know how it goes.
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Post by akinrecovery on Dec 22, 2011 13:28:05 GMT -8
Thanks so much. I found a female therapist. I am comfortable opening up to her. It was hard getting rid of the male therapist. Very power hungry, irritating and controlling and ungrounded. No boundaries at all. He couldnt detach. Very sickening. I am relieved. I did beat myself up having the anger. I didnt give up. I made her aware that I am a love addict and let me see me red flags. Where the additcion is creeping in my life. How it controls and it would tell me there was nothing wrong with the male therapist. It tells me all kinds of things. It tells me how nice a man is. Nice means boundaryless 9 times out of 10
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Post by innerpeace on Feb 27, 2012 10:55:37 GMT -8
I'm so glad that you found someone else. I always choose female therapists because I just feel more comfortable sharing my history and especially any fantasy, seductive tendencies. I recall having a psychiatrist that I was very attracted to and found it hard to focus when he was talking. A lot of the girls thought he was attractive, and he was nothing but professional, but my mind went all over the place. I was in treatment for an eating disorder and had no idea that I was a LA on top of it. But had I known, I think I still would have had a hard time walking away in the beginning. I think that speaks volumes about your desire for recovery.
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Can anyone shed some light for me? I can use some advice. Has anyone had experience with something like this? 
