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Originally Posted by Asiablue
I love to hear about the therapists who are confident in owning up to their own feelings towards their clients. Right now i have no idea what my T thinks or feels about me. I;ve sensed a change in her and i don't know why.
Tornmind: that therapist sounded a bit enigmatic. Going as far as saying he's experiencing countertransference but not explaining what about?
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Asia I don't think he meant to be enigmatic, he was probably embarrassed or thought it not the done thing to explain exactly how it was CT. It certainly confused the heck out of me, I practically had question marks circling my head when he said it, it was like, I'd been going on for a couple of sessions about how he never asks me questions and never leaves any spaces or silences between the time I finish talking and the time he responds. Suddenly one session he announces, it's when you said about the no spaces/silences, suddenly I understood. And I'm going, yeah ok, WHAT? He just said, it's countertransference. And I'm going, what do you mean, HOW is it CT, what are you talking about but he sort of just mumbled away a few words and said no more. Of course I pushed it over the next couple of sessions and thought really hard about the context and he finally elaborated a bit further to the point where I understood that the CT was to do with his self image of what a good therapist is supposed to be like, and nothing to do with me or his feelings towards me (which was a huge relief, as mostly we tend to think of CT as being related to us.)
On the other hand, Feral's question
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Originally Posted by feralkittymom
Hi Torn!
You bring up an interesting experience. I believe under the umbrella of counter transference is also the feelings intensified/pulled forth from the T by the client's presence/interaction in the room.
I wonder if your need for him to be all-knowing expressed itself in the room, verbally or silently, and so intensified his feeling that asking you questions would make him feel weak, and so not meet your expectation of him?
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raises an interesting point - and actually explains why it would be countertransference rather than just an issue he had with being newly qualified. And could explain why therapy with him was a constant struggle by me to be heard, the more I talked the more he talked the more I questioned and doubted the more he threw abstract psychological theory at me and effectively talked over me, upshot, the less I was heard and definitely felt not understood.
It's a really interesting point Feral, that makes me think about therapy in general and how much of the client's expectations, conscious or otherwise, actually affect how the therapist relates to us and how they feel and what goes on in them, without them even being aware of it. You'd have to hope that Ts are on the ball enough to anticipate just such dynamics.
Asia, I know received wisdom says that you probably need to talk to your T about how you're experiencing changes in her, but generally I think Ts are not happy to disclose countertransference and if they can give an alternative explanation they will. How sure are you of your perceptions that there's definitely some sort of change in her - because if you're very sure, I don't think you've got much option other than to talk to her about this. Which could make for some painful and frustrating therapy sessions.
Best of luck with it
Torn