Is Countertransference Usually Admitted?

The last therapist I saw had said she was sorry I was so disappointed in her, and I was confused because at that point I was not disappointed in her. At the time, I said that maybe the disappointment was her transference (not even countertransference) because it had nothing to do with me, did not originate with me at all. She thought about it and said, Maybe. Later, I learned some things that she had withheld that did upset me, so I think she had been projecting her guilt onto me, saying that I was the one that was disappointed. She was very unaware. It was good that it ended.

But that imbalance is part of therapy. Countertransference will tell you about T, not you. In theory, at least. But transference is about you. So that's why therapists try not to discuss the first.

This could be true, but isn't necessarily true. It's in the exploration of how the transferences interact that insight occurs.

I don't think that's odd at all. I think it can take as much courage for a T to admit countertransference as it does for us to admit transference, particularly when they are overwhelmed by it. I expect that kind of courage in my T though. I need him to be stronger than I am for that one hour. That's why I'm there.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can you explain what you mean? In what way is me knowing that my therapist's triggers or mental illness or trauma history going to help my therapy? If a therapist keeps getting triggered, or if I remind her of her abusive brother and she can't control her reactions and ends up needing to explain herself, she better go for therapy herself, she is not competent. She should be able to manage her feelings better. Otherwise I as the client end up learning about her mental issues more than she learns about mine and that's wrong and unethical.

You're assuming only one kind of counter transference--one in which unprocessed stuff from the T's life is interfering with therapy. That's not the situation I'm referring to. Read my earlier post for more common types of counter transference that can be productive for therapy.

I don't know if you are studying to be a therapist or what article or book you are basing your opinion on, in terms of which definition of countertransference we should use or is the right one to use. Because what my therapists have told me about countertransference, over the years, has always been something that's more about them than me and more about their past than present. Which is why they have not shared the content with me.

Look, if they have a reaction to me that makes kind of rational sense, they do not consider it countertransference. A T wanting to kill a client just because she is regularly late, must do her own work to figure out where this extreme reaction is coming from. A T feeling simply annoyed that a client is yet late again is not having a countertransference, it's just a normal reaction!

In fact, if you are going to count all reactions in the definition, then why not call every client reaction also transference? If I'm annoyed that my T cancels tomorrow's appointment with no prior notice, do we have to analyze this as "transference"? Or it is a normal understandable reaction?

Like I said, maybe you know more about this stuff, but the way I understand it, based on what I have learned from my therapists, is that it's very risky to share countertransference, (which is not the same as regular reactions to a client). I can imagine only extreme circumstances where somebody would need to share this, like with a very unstable client who is about to quit therapy because of a terrible misunderstanding, or perhaps in courts, in order to explain how therapy went wrong.

I do think many people may enjoy it though. Which doesn't mean it's therapeutic. But to hear that Ts can also be emotional and act irrationally and that they have triggers, perhaps makes some clients feel more equal to them. Though now T doesn't look that powerful or competent anymore.

Perhaps I should have written "significant" reaction to distinguish it from any normal waking response, but as this is a psychotherapy board, I thought that distinction would be implicit. I'm using my therapy experience as an example, not as the limits of the definition of transference/counter transference. Your Ts' explanations to you were in the context of your therapy, and the information is colored by that context. But in any event, it seems to be a sore point for you, so I'll back out now.

I might be wrong, but my understanding of transference is when you "transfer" a set of emotions from one person onto another. So maternal transference is transferring feelings about your mother onto someone else. Positive transference refers to positive feelings. Negative transference refers to negative feelings. Positive transference is considered healthy in most therapeutic relationships whereas negative transference can be detrimental.

My T telling me that she has to be careful about not mothering is definitely because I have an extensive past with developing maternal transference. While my transference is positive, it's not beneficial to me at this point and it will only make things more difficult for me. I assume that she even brought up the fact of mothering me can mean that sometimes she has that desire. That desire might be because I am reminding her of someone. If so, that's counter transference. OR it can simply be because I'm very child-like when I'm emotional and most people tend to have a desire to mother me. Idk.

I don't care to know if something is actually counter transference or simply a reaction. I do care to know if I affect my T and what I am doing to cause that. But as to understand why she was affected, that's none of my business. She could disclose, I wouldn't mind. But she's trained not to.

Interesting side note: I was talking to my T this week about my ex-T holding my hand when I disclosed my past. I did that because Ts are trained to control their facial and verbal reactions, but not physical reactions. So if my ex-T reacted to my past, I would know right away. My T thought that was pretty clever of me. But she agreed that she was trained to control her verbal and facial reactions. My point, Ts are trained to control/cope with their own transference.

This is not a "sore point" for me, no need trying to make my response into something emotional. You had initially quoted my post to criticize, so I was responding back to your criticism. We both have therapists who told us differently and we are sharing opinions, based on that. You had asked me to refer to your first post for clarity, where I also found you mentioning, "But the traditional definition isn't used so much anymore. Counter transference is more popularly seen as any reaction a T has to a client, whether it's a momentary sense or a long standing pattern of feelings." That's why I asked if you had privileged knowledge (since there are a few therapy students on this board), in which case I wanted to ask you further questions to learn about the recent developments in conceptualization of countertransference. So that's all that was.

Hey gwheatcubs,

Here's a recent thread about this with a simple article overview that explains.

How people define these concepts are different, but regardless, all therapists have countertransference feelings just as all clients have transference feelings.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...ml#post4043034

There's also an entire book on this stuff (and probably many more):

Search Detail | APPI

Glen Gabbard is a good one for subjects like this. You can read many pages of his books from Google search.

Adding something by Glen Gabbard:

*this is a very interesting subject for me. I have more articles and thoughts if anyone is interested.

Thanks for the article Sky. Also, yes, I would like to hear your thoughts on this and further references on the topic. The topic is of interest to me.

Maybe I'm wrong but from what I've learned through schooling so far is that countertransference is the same as transference but applied to the therapist. So the definition would still be the transfer of feelings from other person in a T's life onto the client. It gets kind of murky because I think it is often used to describe any reaction a client or T have toward each other, rather than specific transferred feelings.

Like the example Partless used, a particularly punctual T who becomes irritated with a chronically late client, especially if no effort is made to be on time, is just reacting to their client's behavior. I wouldn't call this transference, just a human reaction. If it effects how the T relates to their client then I think it's important to discuss it so resentment doesn't build up and hurt the relationship. I don't think it needs to be over analyzed though.

On the other hand, there an example from another poster regarding a T who had recently lost a parent having difficulty counseling a client through their grief of losing their own parent. This, as far as I know is one example of counter transference, which the T worked through with their supervisor or their own T. I can't imagine how it could been at all helpful to have discussed it with the client. There are much more unpleasant cases of countertransference (that come up frequently I've learned) since they can't hand pick their clients. That's why supervision and/or their own therapy is so important and really the only way a T can work through it.

Of course there is positive countertransference experiences too (you're drawn to a client who a dead ringer for your first love), but I still don't see the therapeutic value in discussing it. I know it's never so black and white and there are probably times when a discussion is appropriate depending on the situation, but many times it's something to be explored in the T's therapy, not the client's.

Countertransference is also about what the therapist is experiencing for the client. It can be used by a therapist to better understand the world of the client.
Moon

I think the confusion comes from: is what the therapist is experiencing for the client considered "countertransference" or just feelings.

This just reminded me of a situation with my pdoc that was pretty clear countertransference. I was sepertated from H at the time and a relative referred me to a lawyer friend who would help me pro bono. So in a session I told my pdoc I had a lawyer and was glad since it would be stupid not to have one. He is always very calm and even keeled but this time he raised his voice said "Getting a lawyer is what's stupid!" I was taken aback but was curious and asked him why it was so stupid for me to use a lawyer? He said I should be should be using a mediator because a lawyer is a bad idea and will make things worse for me.

I actually knew I was using the right person so I told him that maybe that is true in a lot of cases, but not mine. This lawyer was almost free and said she would behave like a mediator if that's what I wanted. He then apologized and said that so long as that was the case it would be fine. He then said "but don't go to the lawyer for pep talks, come to me".

I knew he was divorced from info I'd seen online (which he knew of) but he never directly told me. But from this reaction it was clear I had struck a nerve and must have had a bad experience with lawyers during his divorce. If I had more confidence at the time, I would have asked him more about that, but chickened out. But that (and other things he's said re: my H) could have backfire on him if I was less confident in my decisions.