Have you experienced counter transference?

Have any of ur therapist's displayed countertransference. How did you know? How was it handled and was it discussed?

I experienced this with a clinician I saw for a few years in an OP eating disorder program. She would tell me that she had dreams about my family--just things that, looking back, are weird.

I decided to distance myself from the center after years of relying on her/them as my only support by meeting with her and letting her know I would no longer visit when I was in the area. She responded by asking 'if that was a good idea'.

I haven't looked back.

My first therapist handled it badly, didn't acknowledge it, refused to talk about my feelings towards him because he was trying to dodge his own countertransference.
My second therapist. Told me right out what feelings he was experiencing and that he was taking full responsibility for them. That was a far better experience.

Yes, I have. My current therapist hypothesizes that my first therapist was dealing with some major countertransference when she terminated. So if he's accurate, she didn't handle her feelings well. At all. It wasn't discussed, as the last time she and I communicated was when she terminated the therapy.

With my current therapist, it was obvious that he was having some countertransference as it relates to my biological mother. I have a lot of unresolved feelings towards her for neglecting and abandoning me as a child, so it's become an important part of my therapy. My therapist also had an emotionally absent mother, and while our stories aren't the same, they're similar enough.

It was first obvious to me when I was talking to my mother using the empty chair technique. T started out pulling out the chair saying, "what would you like to say to your mom? I know what I would say!" I don't remember everything from that moment, but I remember finishing my thought with an "F you." My therapist replied, "THANK YOU! If you weren't going to say it to her, I was. F you, f you, f you."

A couple of sessions later we discussed my first therapist that I mentioned above, and that's when we discussed countertransference. He framed it as how important it is for therapists to manage their countertransferences, because they come up commonly with clients. "For instance," he said, "I actually have a lot of countertransference when we discuss your mom." I thanked him for acknowledging it, but we didn't say anything else about it.

Then sometime later, my therapist and I were discussing my mother and how I'm grieving the absence of a relationship with her, and how I felt that I was betraying my (amazing) stepmom by not having a "mothers bond" with her. Then my therapist went into this like, 15 minute self-disclosure about how he felt similarly during his childhood and early adulthood. I know a lot about his childhood relationships. It was too much. He wasn't handling his own feelings well.

I posted about all of this when it happened, actually. https://forums.psychcentral.com/psyc...y-about-t.html

So I took the advice of my fellow PCers and discussed it next session. His heart was in the right place, but acknowledged that if I was feeling the way I did, he self-disclosed too much. He's been very, very good since then making sure that he's keeping himself out of the room as much as possible.

Massively
It wasn't handled
And I got hurt

Yes.

I'm not sure if they handled it well. Both have told me they experience irritation because I ramble and they feel urges to tell me to stop talking.

I really ramble. They've also said they feel disconnected from me.

And they've also tell me some of my "stories" about my life makes them feel horrified.

My conclusion is they treat me with respect, but I'm definitely not a client a therapist would find likeable.

The discussion came about when I read about it on this forum after we terminated therapy. I know my therapist did experience counter transference, but I never felt any negative fallout from it. I experienced massive transference with her. My case had her rereading John Bowlby 's 13(?) volumes on attachment therapy more than half-way through my therapy. She also consulted with a friend on my case. She said she never brought my case up in her EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) group, because they were new to the processes in EFT.

We are friends today, but the messy transference that we went through don't even factor in. I do not experience any conscious or troubling transference to her and I would expect that is the same with her.

I've been thinking about this, and the answer is that I don't know. My T talked about transference and countertransference in general terms when I brought it up once, but she has never mentioned having specific countertransferential responses to me, although I'm sure things come up for her at times. I am guessing that often the sign of well-managed countertransference is that the client doesn't know about it because the T deals with their feelings using other channels in order to keep the burden of their "stuff" off the client.

It's also a bit conceptually fuzzy to me sometimes as to where the transference/countertransference stops and the "real relationship" begins.

I should not have posted.

Yes. My T basically admitted it, though she didn't use the actual word. At one point, she said she felt she had gotten too close to me and maybe couldn't see my situation objectively. Like she was afraid she wasn't helping because of it. It's much better that she admitted it, because it was right after she acted rather harshly to me in session, and I'd thought about leaving. She said that she had been trying to pull back some and overcorrected. I definitely still get maternal counter transference vibes from her, but it helps to know that she's aware of them too.

I'm pretty sure my marriage counselor, for whom I have fairly intense paternal transference, has some paternal countertransference, though he hasn't admitted it (not that I've really come out and asked him about it). The way he acts toward me, like he seems to almost want to "fix" me--focusing a lot on my personal issues in session, allowing individual outside contact, calling me earlier this week in response to a couple texts that I was really stressed about something medical... But then there have been some negative sides to it as well, where it feels like he's realized he's gotten too close and pulls back. And that's really hurt me a few times. (I won't go into all that now...)

With him, as I said, some of it is probably paternal (even though he's only 12 years older than me). But I also wonder if some of it is that he identifies with me. He's shared that he's had some of the same issues at me--anxiety disorder, issues with his father being emotionally absent, other stuff from childhood that has affected how he is as a parent (like overcompensating with his kids).

The good thing is that he's at least willing to discuss my transference for/attachment to him. He's very accepting and understanding of that and is trying to help me work through it (and we're making some progress, I think). He seems like a pretty self-aware therapist who has done a lot of his own work in therapy, so I imagine he's at least somewhat aware of and trying to manage any countertransference feelings toward me. I'm just not sure he'd admit them if I asked about it.

I actually believe your therapist is handling the counter transference well. I know this is in conflict what others have said, but I think you have to trust that she can and will do her part. From your postings over the years, it seems to me that she has always taken responsibility for "her part." You and her have done amazing work over the years. What would happen if you went back to believing this?

Ditto. ..

I do still believe it. And yes we have. I know most of it's my fault. I'm glad she manages her stuff so well of course. It just felt really bad to have to hear how much I hurt her. I'm an awful person who doesn't deserve her and I know this.

I completely disagree. At least half the fault is hers. I'm not sure she really is managing herself so well... And you're certainly not an awful person! I know it's easy to put all the blame on yourself, but there are two people here, both reacting to each other. It's not just you.

Thanks LT.

Yes, I became very attached to my first therapist---I think I believed she was the mom I never had.

It is not about fault. You have done your part, and you continue to do your part. You are both doing what needs to happen to get you through the process. You are an amazing woman!

ETA: you deserve her (and her help) and more.

You are "friends"? So, you've called this person on a random evening and said something like "hey -- what are you doing tonight? I'm going to the movies, wanna come with me?" and they responded as a normal friend would? Or -- by friends do you mean you have an amicable rapport within the boundaries of a healthy therapeutic relationship?

That's correct. I call her up or she calls me up and says, "Do you want to....?"
Sometimes, I say yes, sometimes I say no, and vice versa. Then we plan on something else.

We have been good friends for 4 years. I was invited to Christmas dinner last year. There is no therapeutic relationship. It's over and done with...

How would one know unless one asked them? And what difference would it make in the long run? Does it matter why they are being an asshole? For me, the reason does not matter.
They are big people, I am handing them a great deal of money to stay back, they can take care of themselves so if they are hurt (which I cannot imagine any of the ones I hired being) or upset in some fashion - my general response would be "not my problem - go hire your own therapist or butch up"

Why do you ask?

My T has been honest about different types of countertransference with me. At times it made my transference worse but it probably would have got worse anyway. The joys of transference focused therapy....

I think mine has it but is in complete denial, as I would expect. Most T's would not openly admit that, it's a shame that "Rules" have to make both sides feel this way about things.

One thing my T said was that he was a lot more open about that sort of stuff than his colleagues but he kinda needs to be with his type of therapy.

I only know of it happening once, maybe it has happened since then, but if so, it hasn't affected me.

The time I noticed, I asked him why he didn't believe me any time I'd come in and he'd asked whether I was drunk or high on anything. I'd say no, and he'd ask again, like right afterwards. It didn't seem at all like he believed what I said, even though I never came to a session intoxicated.

After two or three times, I got upset by it, since I felt like he didn't believe what I said. So I asked him, and he admitted that it was the wrong thing to do. He said that he felt "too much like a dad". I never heard about it again, and he never did anything like that again. So I guess he handled it well.

Majorly with my ex-T. He definitely took over the roll of guardian and to this day we are now platonic friends and have met up for coffee. We still talk to each other every couple of weeks. We have spent time on the phone about his issues with his wife and I have called him in a triggered state for him to calm me down.

It is hard not to have the same expectations from a new T. My standards are way to high because of my ex-T. So I have lowered my standards to expect nothing out of them and I will not feel jaded.