Feeling like a child with your therapist?

[Entropic]

Is it common and is it positive or not? I realized part why I liked my therapist is because she makes me feel like the mother I never had.

[Candid]

If she models a good mother, so much the better! Someone like that can guide you through developmental stages you missed due to poor mothering originally.

At first meeting, I prefer a woman older than myself. And I prefer women therapists to men.

I've had three women friends who were my biological mother's age, all of whom treated me much better than she ever did. I don't think it was an 'accident' that I befriended these women. All three are dead now, and I'm of an age where women older than myself are most likely retired.

So... I think it's a good thing to have an older woman therapist, provided she reflects a positive vision of yourself. You know, does the job your mother failed to do...

[Blueberry]

It might be good for a while, to help you learn nurturing, but I think we need to learn self-nurturing. Also my gut feeling is one of fear that a therapist would eventually exploit that position. Even a good therapist. That might be mixed up with my own history and issues though.

I was seeing a counsellor for a while a few years back. It started out well, I got a lot of help and validation, but at some point whenever I was there I was stuck in an Inner Teenager, not a particularly rebellious one, but a teenager. The counsellor eventually said: "no way! Next time I want you in your Adult".
Then I realised it was impossible for me to get back into my Adult in her presence so I cancelled my next appointment and obviously all subsequent ones and wrote her a little letter with my realisation.

[Wife#2]

The only female therapist I had, I only went to her twice. Because in sessions with her I felt just as I felt around my mother. I didn't feel safe to open up with her. I've had much better growth with male therapists. But, even with one of them, I did end up feeling a bit like a child. He was about my father's age and absent father was one of my issues (Dad was there but not most of my childhood). Feeling listened to by a man was a big, big deal for me. That therapy helped for over a year - until I started to crush on him a little. We both realized that was unhealthy and ended the therapy.

So, my feeling is that if you feel truly safe with her, it's ok to feel somewhat like a child with her. Keep her aware of how you feel, so she can monitor it as the professional and also be aware how you may receive certain things she says (as a child looking for acknowledgement instead of as an adult receiving guidance and help). It can be a good thing, to finally feel that acceptance and warmth. It can also derail your growth if allowed to go too far or too deep.

Only you can judge what works for you. I'd say, if it were me, to keep up with this therapist, but keep her informed of how you receive her (as a mother figure as well as your therapist). Try to remember that, as warm and welcoming as this therapist is, she is not a replacement for your mother - she must always remain your therapist first. This is my opinion, ok?

I'm just very glad you found a therapist who you're willing to work with. That's always a great first step!

[Eyessoblue]

Yes I do, I feel like I was looking for a mother figure, my last therapist who I really liked made me feel very comfortable and I felt like a child sometimes talking to her but it felt the right thing for me to be. The cbt lady I see now must only be just out of being qualified she is very young and here I feel a bit stupid with her thinking that someone so young shouldn't or can't be responsible for helping me due to lack of experience, she is very nice but because of that age I don't really feel that connection.

[woodsgnome]

This child/adult tendency in therapy is probably pretty common. Like any condition concerning fragile emotional wounds, that seems almost natural; it might even surprise if some of that wasn't there.

Once the shock of being with someone where you're allowed to feel, even if that seems a bit childlike, can support positive imaging that never happened before. There are parts of my therapy where this is more obvious--such as when I asked, and was encouraged, to clutch a stuffed toy (an eagle in this case) while the t read Pete Walker's "exercise in feeling" (p. 240 from his cptsd book). I was having a hard time accessing my feelings, and needed a boost beyond my adult self discussing it. The toy became a symbolic talisman to help keep me centered. Sounds, and is, childlike...but in this instance, it's where I needed to be. Sometimes suspending the adult analytics cuts through emotional vulnerability.

Now if I were dependent on that sort of relief from then on--yes, it runs the danger of  entrapping the psyche in the child state, one supposes. So there's a fine line, it seems--even the incident described was initiated by my actions, not hers (though she skillfully wove it into one where I did find feelings that had been so absent in my usual numb state). In other words, she allowed my own childlike notion to come forward, but it was still within an adult-to-adult relationship that I trusted. That feels important within this context.

In my case, I'm lucky to have a t who can work that way with me, as much as possible. I feel less like an object of manipulation (I have with several previous t's) than as a fellow adult working to recover as best I can.  Sometimes the therapy includes, but isn't dependent on, a bit of meaningful childlike wonder. The difference? It's  happening on the basis of 2 adults open to, in her words, "whatever works best" to allow me to be me.

Do I appreciate that? A lot. Does it make me susceptible to turning her into a pseudo-parent? The natural tendency is there, but I don't feel its any kind of threat of becoming more than theoretical in this instance. And I think that's due in no small part to how this t can operate as a fellow adult, not as a parental sort. I'm allowed to be childlike, and I need that on occasion. But so far childlike wonder hasn't fallen into childlike dependency. There are days I think I'd like that--let her just show me what I need to do; instead of letting her guide me in crafting my own discoveries. Painful as that can be, it's the 'best' way--she knows it, I know it.

[radical]

I never understood Pete Walker's description of a healing therapeutic relationship as "reparenting".  I think we need to be able to bring all of ourselves into therapy and that needs to always include who we are as an equal adult.

In a healthy parent-child relationship, the parent and child are devoted to each other during development.  A child is usually a part of their mother from conception.  Thousand of hours are spent in each others company before the child is even able to speak. That cannot be replicated in a therapeutic relationship and the potential dangers in trying to create this dynamic and cram it into maybe an hour a week, with someone who has not known you from the moment you were born, who cannot love you as a parent should love a child, and who has no relationship with you outside of a paid professional role, fills me with dread.

I know there can be healing in relationships that have some of the characteristics of an adult version of parent-child....

I just scolled down and saw that Woodsgnome has said what I was trying to say here so much better so I'll leave it here. I think the comment must have appeared since I started this.

[mourningdove]

If she models a good mother, so much the better! Someone like that can guide you through developmental stages you missed due to poor mothering originally.

This is how I feel. I had no adults in my life who were nurturing or validating when I was a child. I don't think I would have ever been able to figure out how to self-nurture - even to the very limited degree that i am currently able to - if I hadn't found a T who could model that for me by being a nurturing quasi-parental figure at times, within the boundaries of therapy.

[Entropic]

Thank you all for the interesting responses. I am definitely going to tell this to my therapist since as some pointed out, it may become a future problem unless I resolve it. I have a wonky relationship with mother figures in that I sorely lacked a proper one or I dealt with people who I experienced to be impostors by claiming to impose a mother-ish role for me but entirely failed to live up to one.

It was also a bit of a problem in my last relationship because this was the first time I was really close to a woman in a truly intimate way, and I projected the same feelings on her where I sometimes felt like she was a bit like a mother figure to me even though I realistically knew she wasn't, but wanted her to give me some of the comfort you get from your mother. Though at some level I don't think that's entirely unfair because tend to project this on our partners.

Anyway, it got me thinking that while I don't remember my mother because she died when I was very young, my current therapist may still in terms of personality, actually be similar to her.

[sanmagic7]

as a therapist, i think wounded child parts will naturally gravitate and be able to show themselves more readily to a nurturing therapist (who can be perceived by the client as a parental figure).  any good therapist will recognize this transference and deal with it for what it is. 

the therapist's task is to model nurturing for the child parts and guide them so that they can eventually grow and learn how to nurture themselves.  the adult parts are present as well, and learning, then, what nurturing looks and feels like so they can take over the job of self nurturing the whole of the person.  the therapist continues working toward encouraging the client toward healthy perceptions and perspectives as an adult. 

the main thing, i believe, is that one feels safe with his/her therapist.  when there is a safe feeling in the therapeutic relationship, the best progress can be made in the most efficient manner.  it is always about what the client needs to move forward. 

[Blueskies]

As long as you are both aware of the dynamic I think it can be very positive. It's definitely important to bring it up. I had the same situation with a male therapist and it was very healing. If the negative mother-child stuff ever comes up in the relationship then that can be very good to work through as well.

[Lingurine]

It's called transference, the unconscious redirection of feelings retained from childhood from one person to another. In this case from the client to the therapist. The other way around occurs too. Freud was the founder of this definition. It's use is to better understand the clients feelings.

Lingurine