[Asiablue]

How many of you have therapists who admit to experiencing counter-transference with you?

Do you suspect there's counter-tranference but your T isn't admitting to it or do they openly work thru it with you?

Mine has admitted he has feelings about/for me, but doesn't call it counter-transference. He indicated that he has to work to keep his feelings 'out of the room.' Only rarely has it been an issue, usually when I am talking about my husband.

[ScrewedUpMe]

Mine has mentioned it a few times. A few weeks ago she said that she experienced counter-transference with me sometimes when I was getting confused about things and my head starts to get all muddled, she said that sometimes she can feel it too and her head gets muddled. I said, sorry about that

[Wren_]

I've never had anyone actually use the words transference or counter-transference; do some really use it? the feelings that come up with it yes; I'm sure that is there in every relationship whether acknowledged or unacknowledged

I suspect that mine is experiencing it but has never admitted it. She constantly calls me by her daughters name and is sometimes too overly familiar with me and it creeps me out at times.
I have to admire the ts that do admit it, shows real growth and that they are in fact human.

My t has never used the words per se, but has alluded to it from time to time. Especially when she told me that she has her own t that she sees so she can keep "her stuff" out of "my stuff". I loved hearing that she has her own t. Seems like that's the only way a t could remain sane working with people like me. Ha.

[confused and dazed]

My T has said she is concerned about me and worries about me sometimes. Not sure if that would be considered transference though.

[Dreamy01]

Yes, one time I was upset with my T over an action she choose to take and the way she went about telling me. After I voiced my distress she told me part of the reason she reacted as she did was because of her own feelings. She didn't say anymore but asked me if I understood what she was saying (which I did).

[Ike McCaslin]

My PDOC calls it cross transference. She has never admitted it to me. Last Thursday, i showed her my fetish, a potshard I found while paddling the New River in VA. I told her it keeps me in contact with an ancient civilization. She then showed me a pink piece of crystal or quartz or something and said that was hers. I'm not sure this qualifies as counter transference, but I felt quite good about it.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by button30

I suspect that mine is experiencing it but has never admitted it. She constantly calls me by her daughters name and is sometimes too overly familiar with me and it creeps me out at times.
I have to admire the ts that do admit it, shows real growth and that they are in fact human.

I agree Button, i admire very much the ones who can admit they have feelings positive and negative about their clients.

Clients for the most part aren't stupid and can sense when there is a change in T's behaviour and it's unfair and confusing for T's not to be honest about that.

[QuietCat]

I have never gotten any sense that T has any counter-transference type feelings towards me. He keeps everything very professional. I think the closest I've seen in him is back when I first started seeing him and I had a small melt-down one session because I'd realized I wasn't going to be "fixed" as quick as I wanted and I could see a huge mountain of work in front of me. At that time I had a definite sense he was struggling not to come over and hug me.

But otherwise he's just very blank. We've discussed my attachment to him but never what he feels about me.

Originally Posted by Asiablue

I agree Button, i admire very much the ones who can admit they have feelings positive and negative about their clients.

Clients for the most part aren't stupid and can sense when there is a change in T's behaviour and it's unfair and confusing for T's not to be honest about that.

Exactly Asia, I get the feeling that some ts think they are superior and far more intelligent and do not think they owe their clients an explanation to their chafing behaviours. This is very upsetting and for me defeats the whole point of therapy and call these ts fake because clearly they are only in it for the money or have lost sight of what therapy is really about.

[feralkittymom]

Absolutely. He was never one to use jargon, but we talked quite openly both about the paternal feelings he brought into the room, and the feelings I brought up in him through my transference.

As Elliemay said about drs who can spot a depressed patient from the depressive feelings they experience around the patient, counter transference can be a powerful tool for Ts--but must be used appropriately.

Had we not talked so openly, the transferences could never have been resolved.

My T was a supervisor/trainer of post-doc Ts, but he also had a T colleague that he talked to as needed. I know because he arranged for me to be able to call her if needed when he had to be out of town.

[~EnlightenMe~]

My xT said he had counter-transference. I confronted him one time about it, and I told him I felt like what was going on was him, not me. He admitted as much and tried to be careful about it, but it did come up again.

[healed84]

I think that if we all experience transference in our relationships to some degree, then it would make sense that we would all have to deal with counter transference. After all ts are humans and have emotions. I can imagine they encounter some clients whom tug at the heart strings more than others. That being said, he has never been talked about in any of our sessions and I haven't gotten any feeling that he has an issue with it in our relationship.

[doyoutrustme]

transference is not necessarily a romantic crush, its the feelings one has for the other, basically. Of course he has countertransference. He is supposed to use it to help the patient but control it so it doesn't get in the way.

[Snuffleupagus]

My T was honest about having a crush on me when I asked her. She already knew about mine. We haven't really talked about it in transference terms, but I do feel comfortable talking about what effects that might have on my therapy. We just keep the lines of communication open and honestly address whatever comes up. My feelings about it have been a really helpful source of information about myself. In order for my therapy to function, I have to regularly address sexual feelings which I have a pattern of avoiding.

[Anne2.0]

My T hasn't used the word, but admitted to having certain feelings and/or engaging in certain behaviors. He has said that he wished that he could make me feel better about something negative I thought about myself. I have said to him, after he walked me to my car after I told the receptionist about the sort of creepy guy who kept finding me at my car after T, that he is very protective of me. He's had certain life experiences that might make him protective of women in general, and I expect that it's perhaps that desire to protect others that played a role in him choosing T as a career. He sort of denied that he was protective, I was practically sticking my tongue out and saying, "neener, neener, you are too" and he finally admitted that he "wanted me to feel protected and safe in this room." I might have said I didn't need his protection or otherwise made him feel bad about it. And he has said a few times in different ways that I have some similarities to his wife. This doesn't feel creepy to me, although I do find it somewhat confusing in that she is a professional musician, and a pretty famous one at that, and I do this very specialized area of law and don't have a creative spark at all. So I don't really get how we can be similar except we are apparently both jewish feminist types.

My T said he wishes we could hang out, that is his counter transference with me. I appreciated his honesty.

[geez]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

How many of you have therapists who admit to experiencing counter-transference with you?

Do you suspect there's counter-tranference but your T isn't admitting to it or do they openly work thru it with you?

It happened with T2 and she wouldn't admit it. She specialized in trauma and I found her therapy to traumatizing. I fired her

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by geez

It happened with T2 and she wouldn't admit it. She specialized in trauma and I found her therapy to traumatizing. I fired her

Was it her method/training type that was traumatising or her way of dealing with you?

I think i'm going thru similar.

My T definitely doesn't feel one way or the other about me (whether in a transference sense or not). Why would he?

[edited to add: Well, maybe he feels a certain degree of boredom, but I hope that's not actually the case. I don't think it is. But it's the only feeling I could imagine that he might have.]

Originally Posted by doyoutrustme

transference is not necessarily a romantic crush, its the feelings one has for the other, basically.

Well, it's a little more specific than that, I think (though I am definitely no authority on this) - it's feelings that are rooted in a relationship with somebody else, past or present, that are transferred onto the therapist. Or onto the client, in the case of the T. A T can presumably have "normal" positive or negative feelings about a client, that aren't countertransference.

[Lamplighter]

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

[ScrewedUpMe]

My therapist always admits her feelings towards me. She says she has strong motherly feelings for me, wants to wrap me up in a blanket when I feel bad about myself, wants to rush over and give me a hug when I talk about disliking myself etc. She has told me when she has been worried about me or feels protective of me.