Interesting topic Asia!

I had a T once who explained that a specific issue I confronted him about was down to countertransference on his part. I didn't really know what he was talking about and he never elaborated (I thought it was quite good of him to admit it in the first place, but equally it threw my confidence in him because I needed him to be strong and all knowing).

It was only ages later I worked out what he meant, that he never asked me questions about anything I said because he believed as a T he was supposed to already know and understand everything and that asking questions was an indication of failure/incompetence on his part. Heavy stuff for a T to be labouring under!

For about two or three sessions after he said that his not asking me questions was a countertransference issue he actually did ask me questions (in a very obvious unnatural to him way) but that all petered out pretty quickly and he was back to assuming he knew what I was talking about and so not giving me silences or asking me to explain things further.

So though he accepted and admitted some countertransference, it didn't change anything and he obviously didn't learn from it to improve his approach. To be fair to him, he was only newly qualified, and he was a very nice man... I quit with him after six months...

Torn