A common rule at many festivals where I’m invited to teach is that one not abuse their position of power. Of course, the most obvious interpretation is to not fuck your students. But there are many more layers to power abuse, especially when working in the field of trauma and recovery where the ability to hold space for someone is paramount. From the position of a pedestal, where one is seen as some degree untouchable and god-like, it is difficult or impossible to truly ‘be there’ for someone in need of a compassionate and personal presence. The psychological term which best describes the underlying dynamics at play is ‘transference’.

I first encountered transference long before I became a teacher, although I had no idea then what it was called or of its psychological ramifications. I was learning rope bondage, and I wanted to practise up to three to five times a week. I needed a lot of partners. Initially, the focus was on patterns and suspensions. Still, with my fascination for the older kinbaku teachers, like Yukimura, the Bakushi guy, I slowly but surely turned towards sexuality and domination. So my rope bondage sessions became tragic but oh-so-beautiful love stories filled with seduction, suffering and longing. Ah, the drama of it all! I sometimes say, half-jokingly, that I need to fall in love in order to tie someone. Or at least I need there to be some emotional intimacy.

But Everybody Loves You

I soon found that being in love with two handfuls of practice partners and having them emotionally dependent on me was highly impractical. So I started to value stable partners with solid integrity and emotional intelligence. After tying someone for the first time, I learnt to keep an eye on our interaction the days and weeks afterwards to see if there were any traces of the power dynamic left between us. If there were, I would encourage consciously talking about it. Years later, after having read scientific literature about trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, and what the dynamics of patient transference onto their therapists can be, I was able to put words onto what I had been so familiar with for years.

What happens is that people with a submissive tendency look for people in power to act out their submission. Preferably someone both flawless and totalitarian, where there is no stone left unturned. Of course, this person doesn’t exist, it’s a false god, so fantasy is created and projected. It’s commonly called putting people on pedestals. Being up there, one can either play along and reinforce the illusion or use that power to encourage the other to reconnect with reality. That is, climbing down from the pedestal if one becomes aware of what’s happening. I can enjoy staying on the pedestal in private play with someone I have a well-established relationship with because it feeds the hierarchy we are exploring. In professional and therapeutic relationships, however, doing so can be extremely destructive.

I remember a story I received in an email a few days after a festival. The woman had participated in one of my rituals on submission. She explains in the letter how she arrived with this deep craving to be dominated, as in her daily life she was always the one in control. So when mingling with the other participants, she evaluated every man she met. Could he be the one? Out of a hundred, she finally found one, and as the ritual started, she kept her gaze strictly focused on him. An hour passed until they finally met, standing in front of each other, feeling the power dynamic between them. A buzzing feeling of excitement made her body tremble; here we go, finally time to release control and surrender. But as that thought travelled through her mind, the one thing that shouldn’t happen happens. He drops to his knees in submission, pleading with his eyes for her to dominate him. She does it. She is used to having power after all; she is the masculine woman in a masculine world. At the same time, she sees me in the corner of her eye. I look calm and in control, softly directing the ritual. For a moment, she feels seen by me, and then she knows I am the one that can dominate her. I’m the one at the top of her hierarchy. The festival continues, and she sees me queuing for food, singing in the morning gatherings, and drinking coffee in the cafe. Maybe we have eye contact, which makes her feel seen in her longing. She ends her email: Did you see me too? She sends me a picture, and she is totally unknown to me.

A Hassle In Everyday Life, Dead Serious In The Therapeutic Relationship

While this is a funny, almost charming story from a festival, it can be deadly serious in a therapeutic relationship. Most people I meet have a repetitive behaviour pattern concerning power and sexuality. Some have a history of being submissive without consent or consciousness, so they are used to giving away their power without anything in return. While others have fought so hard to gain control that they ultimately lost the ability to let go. The most complicated situation is to oscillate between the two extremes. Most of my clients are usually aware of their behaviour, at least on the surface, as they have spoken to someone who recommended them to contact me or found me after hours of searching for information. 

My typical client is a female and their trouble almost always includes a man in a position of power. When we meet, the key is to see that I represent one example of the possibility of exploring domination and submission in a conscious and consensual way. While ultimately keeping the power within themselves. Transference makes this process tricky, as I will likely come off as the ‘good guy’ who understands them and is willing to work with them. And yet it also works because they pay me, so I don’t need another hidden agenda, and our therapeutic relationship is clear. I can uphold this fantasy for them during the session because they never really need to see the whole me. I can be the false god. While behind the scenes, I’m just as complex and messed up as everyone else. At the very least, I can empower people to be conscious and consensual about transference and how it affects them in the spaces I create. Transference in theory can be skillfully utilised by both participants when it’s conscious, openly acknowledged, discussed and used as a tool of sorts to help the one with less power understand their patterns better. It becomes a potentially destructive force when it is unconscious or unrecognised.