Counter-transference

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?

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?

I think this too. I go in, I try to describe what I am trying to convey which is not all that unique or interesting or possibly even relevant since I have no idea what is useful to describe and what is not in therapy, I toss money on her table and I leave. Nothing in that would seem to rise to a level of a therapist having any feelings about me one way or the other. I don't worry about the therapist being bored. I figure they sit there thinking of things that interest them.

Stop , do you not have a feeling regarding someone you see on a regular basis? Like a student or client?

Not always. Some I like, some I dislike and some I really just don't feel about one way or the other.

Those ARE feelings. Some people you like, some not so much and some you can take or leave.

I believe therapists are trained to be impervious. Most clients they would have no feelings about at all. Countertransference is their construct.

I think in a perfect world yes, but I think most T's are human and can't help but have a feeling about a patient, be it counter transference or a general feeling toward a person. Most of them are human.

I think if I were a therapist (yeh I know, that's a stretch) this might give rise to some feelings on my part, yes.

I can't envision what possible benefit I could get from therapy with an impervious T who had no feelings.

My T has said more than once that if he wasn't genuinely interested in his clients he would pick a different profession. (That doesn't change the fact that I don't think he has any particular feelings about me - it's a general statement.) I believe this is probably true for most Ts. If you can't feel any interest in the people you are forced to see, week after week after week, it must be very difficult to enjoy your job.

Mine has only vaguely alluded to such, on one occasion, when she said that something we were discussing was more about her stuff than mine. It actually felt kind of disingenuous at the time.

I definitely suspect countertransference and have recently been going around and around with T about whether she has been angry with me in the past. She finally acknowledged some irritation and frustration. Maybe this is an erroneous view, but it's always seemed to me that if it were really true that she's never been angry with me, then she's not all that emotionally invested in the relationship. And maybe she doesn't need to be, but I don't really want a T that's impervious.

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

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

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.

Torn, I know certain schools of therapy put a lot of emphasis on this as a tool to understand the client. I suspect experienced Ts are more comfortable with counter transference in general. I remember my T observing that I had a way of being so silently intense that it could exert a lot of pressure on others. What he was "reading" was my hypervigilence, which didn't display as anxiety, but as a penetrating stillness. This led to opening up more disclosure of my childhood and why I developed that capacity.

My xt told me on numerous occasions that he was "intimidated" by my intelligence. It really used to confuse me, because IRL I am one of the most non-threatening people you could meet. My current therapist says that he probably felt threatened by intelligent women, but it really bothered me and still does.

Countertransference is so very dangerous to the client if the therapist does not recognize it and effectively manage it. My first therapist became horribly toxic to me because he did not manage his transference. The therapy crashed and burned, and I almost didn't survive it.

Sounds almost precisely like me.

My XT did the same thing...let her crap get messed up in mine!

Mine too and she blamed me for everything so much so that I thought I actually was to blame and I was going crazy.

Yes. He is open about it.. for the most part. He doesn't indulge too much but has stated that he finds his attraction to me difficult at times. We have a mutual attraction but would NEVER go there. Some things (especially these things) are better left as fantasy!

He also wishes he could be more open with me about himself and his life. Like, a friendship. Again, wouldn't happen. I presume we will keep in touch for a long time though.

this fascinates me. my therapist just had a conversation with me today about this. she had been suggesting i go see my pdoc to see if maybe i need to change or up my meds bc she thought i have been more depressed lately. i didn't/don't really believe her, but i've always listened to her suggestions, so i went. my pdoc agreed with her and we changed a few things. today i told her how this just doesn't feel like depression. to me, it is like the time i spent 3 months crying every day, wishing i was dead sort of stuff. she said it would make sense i think that, but being numb/emotionally shut down is also signs of depression and that her and my pdoc can feel it.

she has said that a few times. i find it so fascinating. how can you feel how another perso is feeling?

Yep, ditto here. Mine frankly blamed me for the breakdown in our relationship. It was horrible. And since I didn't yet know anything about counter-transference, I thought he must be right. He killed something in me that I now think I'll never recover. I didn't think I'd survive it. All I can say, is that the therapist I have now saved my life.

Being emotionally numb/distant is absolutely a presentation of depression. It was the major way my depression showed itself most of my life.

As far as how someone can "feel" the mental state of another, I don't think it's so mysterious. Most of us have the ability to some degree. It's easy for us to guage the mood of people we know well. Those who have been trained and have wide experience are more consistent at it. And Ts are probably the most highly trained and observational, with the most intense contact.

Interestingly, those who were abused as children also often have a heightened awareness and perception of the moods of those around them because it's a skill they had to develop as a defense.

It's funny you should mention that, feralkittymom. I apologized to my T once for having made him anxious or uncomfortable the session before. He asked what made me think that he was anxious. I had to sit there for a second and think about it and then said it had to do with how tight his muscles were, the way he was kind of clenching his pen, and the fact that his breathing became more rapid and a little more shallow. He kind of smiled and acknowledged that all of those things had probably happened, but he had not noticed at all. He agreed he was at least a little uncomfortable, but it was just a hard subject we were discussing and I shouldn't feel badly about discussing it with him. He also commented on people with an abusive background are just better at picking up the moods of others, but not always great about interpreting exactly what they are seeing.