The guilt of enjoying transference

I find that my colleagues spend a significant amount of time discussing the difficulties of negative transference. I hear about the aggressive clients, the silent clients, and the clients who challenge every credential on the wall. I see the toll these sessions take on the people in my field. But I rarely hear a therapist speak honestly about the opposite experience. I am talking about the sessions where the client thinks I am a genius. I am talking about the moments when a client looks at me with an idealization that borders on devotion. I find that therapists feel a specific kind of guilt when they enjoy this. I think that guilt is a mistake. I believe that enjoying positive transference is not only a natural human response but a sign of clinical clarity.

The industry teaches me to treat the client’s idealization like a radioactive material. I am told to handle it with tongs. I am told to analyze it until it disappears. I am told that if I enjoy the feeling of being admired, I am failing at my job. I think this perspective is dishonest. I sit in a room for forty hours a week. I listen to stories of failure, trauma, and stagnation. My work is often a slow crawl through a swamp of human misery. Then, a client arrives who views me as the person who has all the answers. They find my metaphors brilliant. They find my silences profound. They remember a comment I made three weeks ago as if it were a holy text. I feel a physical lift when this happens. I do not just find it helpful for the work. I find it pleasurable. I enjoy being the object of their admiration.

I see my peers recoil from this admission. They treat this enjoyment like a lapse in character or a breach of ethics. I think that reaction is an unexamined remnant of a certain kind of religious self-denial. It is a secular version of the hair shirt. I refuse to wear it. I believe that the therapist who can look at the reward clearly is more reliable than the one who cannot. If I admit the pleasure, I can stay objective. If I hide the pleasure from myself, I become a slave to it.

Positive transference is grease on the tracks. When a client loves me, they do the work. They do not fight my interpretations. They do not forget their appointments. They are eager to please me. This eagerness is a massive clinical advantage. I can move a client through a year of cognitive behavioral therapy in three months when they are in a state of positive transference. The work is easier. I am less tired at the end of the day. This is a reward for my labor. I do not understand why I am supposed to feel bad about that reward.

I remember a specific client who illustrates this point. This client had spent years in and out of clinics. They were stuck in a cycle of self-criticism. They viewed every authority figure as a threat. For the first few months, our sessions were a struggle. They questioned my fees. They doubted my methods. Then, the tone changed. They started bringing me small tokens of their progress. They began to mirror my speech patterns. They looked at me with an expression of absolute trust. I could have pointed this out immediately. I could have analyzed it as a defense against their own autonomy. I chose not to do that. I sat in the warmth of their admiration. I used that warmth to push them. I gave them a directive that would have caused a month of resistance earlier in the year. They followed it without question because they wanted my approval. Their life improved. I felt a surge of pride. I felt like the expert they believed me to be.

I find that therapists perform a kind of penance for their successes. They talk about how exhausted they are. They talk about the burden of the work. They use terms like vicarious trauma to signal their virtue. I rarely hear a therapist say they had a fantastic day because their clients made them feel successful and wise. I think the guilt comes from a fear of the narcissistic. But my ego is in the room whether I admit it or not. If I pretend I do not have an ego, I let it run wild in the dark. I prefer to keep the lights on. I want to know exactly how much I am enjoying the client’s praise. If I know the exact amount, I can subtract it from my clinical judgment. If I do not know the amount, I will start to steer the sessions toward praise without even realizing I am doing it.

A therapist who admits they like being idealized is more reliable. I can trust a person who knows their own price. I cannot trust a person who claims they are above the human need for validation. This is a service industry. Part of that service is relational. If I am good at my job, people will like me. Some will love me. Some will think I am a savior. This is a predictable result of the frame I have constructed. I set up a room where I am the focus. I listen better than their spouse. I remember things their mother forgot. I am never late. I never talk about my own problems. I have engineered a situation where it is almost impossible for the client not to idealize me. To then feel guilty about the result of my own engineering is a waste of time. It is also a form of dishonesty.

I receive a check at the end of the hour. That is the formal reward. But the informal reward is the relational high. This high is what keeps people in the field for twenty years. It is not the continuing education units. It is not the insurance reimbursements. It is the feeling of being the sun in someone else’s universe for fifty minutes. I do not think I am a bad person for liking that feeling. I think I am a person who has found a way to make my own needs serve the needs of others. That is the definition of a successful career.

I think about the sessions that feel like a slog. I think about the clients who challenge every observation. They are late. They forget the insights from the previous week. This is negative transference. It is exhausting. I do not feel guilty about hating those sessions. I do not feel like a bad therapist because I dread a client who treats me like a disappointment. So why do I feel like a bad therapist when I look forward to the client who treats me like a hero? It is a double standard. I am allowed to suffer, but I am not allowed to enjoy. I find that many of my colleagues are addicted to the suffering. They think it makes them more professional. I think it just makes them more prone to burnout.

Positive transference feels like a tailwind. I can feel the momentum the moment the client enters the office. They sit differently. They look at me with an expectant smile. They are ready to receive whatever I give them. This makes the session move with a fluid grace. I can be blunt. I can challenge a long-held belief. The client accepts it because they are in the glow of the transference. I find this state of affairs delightful. It is a delight to work with someone who believes in my ability. It makes me a better therapist. I am more creative. I am more daring. I am more present. When I am not fighting the client’s resistance, I can use all of my energy for the actual work.

The guilt is a distraction from this efficiency. I have learned to ignore the guilt. I have learned to embrace the reward. I want to be the kind of therapist who can say: I am enjoying the way this client looks at me. I am enjoying the speed of this progress. Because once I say that, the power of the feeling loses its grip on my secret heart. I can then ask: what does the client need now? If I am hiding the pleasure, I will always be looking for another hit of it. I will keep the client in the idealizing phase longer than is necessary. I will avoid the confrontation that might break the spell. That is the danger. The guilt is the smokescreen for the addiction. I prefer clarity. Clarity is what makes me a professional.

I hear therapists talk about the work as if it is a purely altruistic endeavor. They act as if they are empty vessels. I find that stance dangerous. If I am an empty vessel, I am a vacuum. A vacuum sucks everything into itself. I am not a vacuum. I am a person with a history and a set of needs. One of those needs is to feel competent. Another is to feel valued. When a client meets those needs through positive transference, I am getting paid twice. I get the fee and I get the ego boost. I do not see why I should apologize for that. The client is getting what they paid for. They are getting a therapist who is energized, attentive, and effective. They are getting a therapist who is happy to see them.

The problem in our field is not that we enjoy our clients’ admiration. The problem is that we have been trained to lie about it. We have been trained to pretend that we are immune to the very human dynamics we study. I think this pretense creates a barrier to true clinical excellence. A therapist who is honest about the pleasure of the work is a therapist who is grounded in reality. I am not interested in being a saint. I am interested in being a technician who knows how to use every tool at my disposal. If the client’s idealization is a tool that makes the work faster and the day better, I am going to use it. And I am going to enjoy it. I suggest you do the same.