Meant to get here sooner, but as I have mentioned in a number of places, the work schedule is a bit demanding these days.
But I did want to weigh in. 1) Can it change from one to another over time?
In my experience absolutely. My feelings shift back and forth between romantic/erotic and paternal (which brings its own set of problems OR is an accurate reflection of my experience, depending on how you look at it), since my relationship with my father was incestuous and sexual feelings were mixed in with the paternal in an incredibly damaging way. Being able to track my shifting feelings about my T and what triggers me into what feelings has actually been really helpful in tracking and understanding how those beliefs were formed. For me, really strong erotic feelings are usually a flag that I am trying to avoid something really painful.
The paternal feelings tend to win out when the intensity of the past is not clouding things up, as that is closer to what our relationship really is.
Or if you feel one way, it will stay that way, while you work through it?
Again, in my experience, it shifts back and forth all the time, sometimes in the course of a session. It depends on a lot of factors, including what is going on in my life and in the therapeutic relationship.
2) If someone is experiencing erotic transference with their T, does that mean its 'progress' in that it's a more 'adult' version of the type of transference where you are coming from a child part and want to be held and 'mothered'?
I don't think transference of any kind is an indicator of progress. It just is. It's what occurs, because it's what is coming up in the relationship. So I think that the type of transference is governed by what gets tripped off inside of you and what resonates and where you, as the person you are, fit those feelings. That's why I think working with what is going on in the therapeutic relationship can be so effective (while also being terrifying and difficult) because how you behave with your therapist is often a microcosm of how you behave in all your relationships. The controlled environment (and the safety of that environment) are what afford you a chance to understand yourself, and become conscious of your behaviors and beliefs so you can work on changing those you wish to.
3) Does erotic transference mean you've worked thoroughly worked through one set of painful feelings (i.e., wanting to be held and your T to be a mother type figure towards you), and they wont come up again?
Bwwwaaahhhhhaaaaahhhaaaaaa
Sorry. Had to get that out.
I think the more I have worked through all these feelings, the easier it has gotten, but this work is woven throughout my work in therapy and continues to be. I have never found therapy to be a straightforward proposition where you just continue upward on a path of progress. To me, it's a helix, where you go around, again and again, hitting the same major issues, but each time the prior work allows you to go deeper. And I don't think you're ever done growing. You don't reach a point where you say "OK I'm healed and there is no further need to be introspective or grow." Life just doesn't work that way. We will always have these issues, we just learn to manage them in such a way as to live a much fuller life. But there is always more to learn and to become aware of. I do think you can hit a point where you do not need weekly therapy or possible any therapy at all to engage in this process because of what you have learned, but the growth and learning itself will never be over. I think its an integral part of being alive. A really good example of this from my therapy is the issue of wanting to be hugged or held. My T has an across the board no hugs policy and we have spent a lot of sessions spread over seven years on the topic. I have returned to it when it gets triggered. I have always found relief in being able to talk through it and then it settles for a while but later something happens and I have returned to the topic. It's become something we actually joke a lot about now because we've discussed it from so many aspects.
VH,
I loved the Guide to Psychology website and also got a lot out of it, especially the Q&A. In many ways, that site is the root of my knowledge about transference. I actually found it when I was first looking for answers about the growing attraction I was feeling for my then marriage counselor.
The author was so clear about it being important to discuss these feelings was my motivation about opening up to my T about how I felt. I actually scheduled an individual appointment to talk to him about it. My T handled it beautifully and in many ways it led to me working with him individually (the story is on my blog in The Beginning). And the author is a lovely man, not long after opening up to my T, I wrote him to thank him and had a lovely warm, email exchange. I understand why you recommend it so highly. AG