View Single Post
 
Old Dec 27, 2010, 02:35 AM
sunrise's Avatar
sunrise sunrise is offline
Legendary
 
Member Since: Jan 2007
Location: U.S.
Posts: 10,383
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius View Post
How are therapists taught to deal with countertransference?
Different training programs will deal with it differently. Here are some ways therapists might deal with countertransference:
1) Self awareness. If the therapist knows himself well, he will be aware when countertransferential feelings arise and can apply diligence to managing them so as not to harm the client.
2) Supervision. This means the therapist sees a therapist for advice on his clients. The therapist can talk to this supervisory therapist about his feelings toward clients, where they are coming from, how to manage them, etc. This leads to greater self awareness (#1). Tiberius, you also asked what qualifications the therapist's therapist (who provides supervision) would have. I believe this is determined at the state level. In my state, the Ts providing supervision must have training in supervision and have some sort of certificate in this. You can look this up for your own state.
3) Transparency. Not all Ts do this, but my T does. When he is feeling something transferential towards me, he tells me. By identifying it openly, and laying it out on the table before us, it is somehow disarmed and loses its power. I appreciate my T's honesty in these instances. It makes him seems more human to me to know that his own feelings sometimes arise. I know some Ts would not be transparent with their clients as it goes against their training (e.g. some therapists believe they should be a "blank slate" to the client).

These are just 3 ways a therapist might deal with countertransference. Not every T will use all of them, and some Ts might use other ways.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiberius
I'm not sure if this is a good idea but I have thought about learning to deal with transference the same way that therapists learn to deal with countertransference.
Do you think any of the 3 ways I've mentioned might be helpful to you?

There are many books on how to be an effective therapist, which encompasses managing countertransference. I don't have a specific recommendation but there are probably a lot of books of this sort that can be found by searching Amazon (or your public library database).
__________________
"Therapists are experts at developing therapeutic relationships."
Thanks for this!
amandalouise