Last week, 鈥減laces where we work out what it means to be human in relation to God, the earth, and others.鈥� Here, D. Michael Louderback (MACP, 鈥�13), an analytic psychotherapist and ongoing contributor to this blog, writes about another way in which we work out (and work with) our humanity, particularly when our internal messages tell us that our humanity鈥攐r someone else鈥檚 humanity鈥攊s not worth loving well.
I remember when I opened the doors to my private practice back in the fall of 2013, secretly thinking that there would be no way the thing would ever fly. As a recent graduate, I was struggling to understand what the mind even is鈥攚hat my mind even was鈥攍et alone the task of being able to help others build theirs. I was certain that even if I did acquire a handful of patients, they would inevitably leave upon discovering that I had no idea what I was doing. It鈥檚 fair to say that, in my opinion, I was doomed before I even sat with my first person.
Coincidentally, and unrelated in my young mind, this was a similar feeling I had towards other areas of my life鈥攆riends I would make, potential partners I would date, even towards my own therapist and cat! That, at the core of my heart, a serious, rooted belief existed that said nothing I would dare want in the world would find me valuable enough or lovable enough to stay. I had carried that inclination and psychic certainty around with me for 27 years鈥攖errified of it, constantly looking for signs of it, keeping it hidden and smothered from notice through a charming disposition, the latest fashion, and the never-ending upkeep of being likable and funny and accommodating and easy and 鈥渟traight鈥� and gregarious and safe and attentive. Anything the situation called for, really, I would be.
In psychological life, what I鈥檝e described from a page of my own life can be known as the transference. It is this odd and theoretical word that tries to sketch an experience and phenomenon that occurs in each and every one of our lives, much of the time.
Its make up? Transference is controversially and complicatedly known as all sorts of things鈥攁 fixed set of beliefs, a predetermined and projected attitude, a redirection of an experience onto something or someone completely new鈥攐r, quite simply, the feelings one has toward a therapist, lover, friend, pet, and on and on. It鈥檚 been described as an unresolved drama from early life, a medium through which internal psychic objects get located outside, and an obstacle of the 鈥榬eal.鈥�
All of this is merely beginning the scratch the surface, of course.
Its purpose? Transference makes the brand new, the unknowable, more familiar. It makes the strange, the stranger, more recognizable so that the mind isn鈥檛 overwhelmed with a truly naked experience again and again, moment by moment, day after day. In many ways, we as humans couldn鈥檛 flow and move throughout our days and throughout the world without this essential function that the mind employs. Transference makes the world navigable and not entirely foreign.
Transference makes the world navigable and not entirely foreign.
However, as my story illuminated, it has its limitations and problems.
Transference is both real and not real at the same time. Within a person鈥檚 internal world, within this person鈥檚 experience and psychic reality鈥攖he transference feels entirely and unquestionably true. There were moments I would sit in a classroom as a boy, as a teenager, as a young man, and really feel that if people truly knew me, I would be abandoned. Those feelings about my early work weren鈥檛 inserted for the purpose of essay writing鈥攖hey were real to me, they haunted me.
Yet, the transference is incomplete. It鈥檚 assumptive. It is often mistaken and arresting and limiting to the nourishment and growth of the mind, therefore, the person. Transference as possible tyranny. Transference as traumatic. Which can blot and suffocate an experience that actually is new and unknown, and needs to be known for the first time.
The truth is that we all need help to grow our capabilities of working-with our psychic equipment, our minds. We all need help with our projections, our mistaken beliefs, our transferences positive, negative or otherwise. Because when we don鈥檛, we carry burdens around that needn鈥檛 be carried. Because when we don鈥檛, we recreate the traumas that have been real to us again and again and again. Because when we don鈥檛, we identify others鈥攚hether people of color, or women, or LGBTQ, or families, or churches, or Republicans, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or children or the vulnerable or pets鈥攁s the primary sources of pain and trouble and fear, instead of looking inside.
In September, my private practice will turn four years old and I will continue everyday going to work. My cat Jake is currently snoozing, twitching a bit from his dreams, as I write this essay. I鈥檓 in some of the best relationships I鈥檝e ever had the privilege of participating in now; ones where I get to be exactly as I am鈥攚ithout all of the protective and exhausting facades. And? I think it鈥檚 fair to say that my therapist enjoys (dare I say loves me), as I wholeheartedly enjoy and love him.
My point? Transferences need worked-though, not transferred. Transferences need cared about and understood and, if we鈥檙e lucky, resolved and opened up and let go. And strange situations, strangers, need to be strange-enough so that they can be known uniquely and exactly as they are, rather than what we fabricate them to be.