Bringing up counter transference

For those that talk to their T's about counter transference, how did you first bring it up? Did it get easier? Was there any type of push back or attempts to analyze your reasoning for asking about it?

Have you found it a useful tool or a hindrance to discuss it directly? Did it ever come out to not be the way you thought it was, did that hurt more or less?

Off and on I have felt like there has been counter transference happening with my T. I have never asked her about it directly. I have asked in my journal. And we have never talked about it. Mostly, I do believe it's best left for them to deal with outside of my sessions. Sometimes though I wonder if it would be helpful to discuss it a little. My T does not self disclose very much, though she is an active participant in my sessions, providing me with many experiences, so I wouldn't consider her a blank slate. It is unusual for us to talk much about what is going on for her - I get about a 40/60 split on her answering my question to analyzing or somehow her wiggling out of answering my question.

My previous therapy was all about transference. I never spoke to my former therapist about countertransference while I’m therapy. I brought it up early on (2-months) in our friendship. The first time and only time she would not have a very blunt open discussion with me. At the time I felt she was a little defensive. It felt like she was telling me in a round-about way that if there was any countertransference she dealt with it outside of our sessions. I don’t recall any negative or positive countertransference on her part. Since therapy is over I don’t have a desire to open the discussion again and am left a little bit curious. Maybe, when I’m in my 80’s I may bring it up again.

We talk about it where appropriate. My T is exceptionally self-reflective and I'm not sure all therapists would have the capacity to use it in the way he does.
It normally comes up if I perceive a change in the way he is or if he says something which strikes me as hurtful/odd/non-empathic. I usually tell him how I feel about what he has said or how he is being. Then he will think about what I said and if there's a countertransference response there he'll often tell me. It confirms my perceptions and had allowed me to trust my perceptions a lot more in general. Usually it's something like feeling protective of me (sometimes due to paternal countertransference), or struggling with some aspect of my process. He doesn't usually share how it relates to his 'stuff', he deals with that in his own time, as he should.

This is an interesting topic Elio and I think the answer would depend on who you are talking to.
I have discussed counter transference with my t because it came seeping our in a few of our sessions when she would get really angry at me. She apologised and blamed counter transference.
Ideally therapists are supposed to bring their counter transference to supervision and discuss it with their supervisors. I don’t think my tv was going that and that’s why it leaked into my session.
It can’t hurt to ask your t if you want to discuss it with her but she might be reluctant because that would be moving away from you and moving towards her.
Some ts are not in control of their own emotions( like my t) and then the counter transference can be quite damaging and scary for the client.

If you are having a good moment where you feel you are connecting on a more intimate level because of the transference-counter transference dynamic and you ask him about it, and he says that no, nothings going on for him, does it kill the good moment? Has that happened to you?

I guess the same if it's a bad moment... so if your perception is just wrong, what comes with that baggage for you (if you want to share, if there is anything)?

Hmm. I'm not sure that connection necessarily means transference/countertransference. I mean it could have its roots there but when we talk about the connection between us we talk more about what's happening in the moment than what the transference is usually. For example he has described it as intense when we make eye contact and talked about feeling deeply connected. I think it would be a bit weird and kind of non-therapeutic to say 'nothing's going on for me' so I can't imagine him saying that. He would probably say if I feel connection, then it is mutual, because connection is an energy that flows between us.
In terms of bad moments, there was one time when I said it felt to me like he was being defensive. He responded that he didn't consciously feel defensive but that he trusts my perception so there might have been some unconscious defensiveness, which he will reflect on. That's much more validating than denying it. I think he's right that we can't just outright deny the responses people perceive in us (including transference) because there are unconscious processes that we might not be aware of. For that reason I don't think he'd ever dismiss my perceptions out of hand.

I guess it depends on whether you mean countertransference in the sense that I might bring up feelings that are about my therapist's issues/history or whether you mean countertransference in the sense of my therapist talking about specific feelings or reactions that she has in response to me (that she believes are not about anybody else in her life, as far as she can tell). I admit that I am not always crystal clear on understanding transference and countertransference, and I think that's because they can be fuzzy and complicated and open to interpretation.

If it's the definition where I bring up feelings in her that are related to her past (like if my behavior or mannerisms remind her of her mother or whatever), then no, she never talks about that kind of thing and rightly so. But if it's the definition that's about her sharing feelings she has about me in general or about whatever story I'm telling at the moment, then yes. I am sure there are one-off times when I have frustrated or annoyed or delighted her and she hasn't mentioned it. I don't think she is quick to share her feelings spontaneously. But she has talked a little bit about how she has a "two-person" philosophy of therapy, and she looks for ways that her feelings toward me and my relational patterns can give her a sense of how other people in my life might react to me. So if I have certain things that I unconsciously do to disconnect from people, she would talk about that and explore it in a helpful, supportive way. She has also shared times when she feels protective of me, and she has told me that certain aspects of my story make her sad (or angry or whatever). It's all titrated into manageable doses, though, so I won't be overwhelmed by it.

I have found all of this stuff a useful source of data. I like that I can ask her how she feels about something or about me (especially when I feel ashamed or afraid, like because of something I shared). I don't know that she necessarily encourages me to make this process a focus of therapy (likely because she wants therapy to be about my life, not just about therapy), but she certainly doesn't discourage me asking about it either.

i personally would not, i don't think most T's would be honest about if they had those feelings.

I think Runcible's therapist is a rare exception. I have never had a therapist admit to countertransference, even after it was clear to me from their anger that there was a lot they needed to own but didn't.

I guess it is more like RS has talked about, just when I feel, sense a shift in her and how she is interacting with me for whatever reason. I think that is how I will bring it up. I wrote fairly extensively about it this journal set that I will give her on Monday because I felt like there was one of these moments in Thursday's session. I had already been thinking of how to talk to her about this concept going into Thursday's session. Then there was a topic on Thursday that felt like something was going on with her. Maybe she was just trying to convey something to me and I picked up on the shift but don't know what it means ... or ??? So, yeah, I think I will talk to her more in the general, what should we do, if I notice something like this, way.

This is such an interesting topic. Thanks for starting this, Elio.

I wish my Ex-T would have been willing/able to talk about countertransference like RS's T does. Over the last few months before I left we got more and more entangled.

It would have been good to have a really open discussion about our relationship. Yet, whatever was going on was blamed on my problems and my transference. Her countertransference/s which must have been there, because things started to get really out of hand and got personal, were never talked about.

This was really crazy-making in the end. Because I kept having the impression that something was seriously off. She would deny that there were any problems, or she would minimize the (tangible) problems that I did bring up. So she would invalidate my perceptions again and again. It felt like gaslighting. Because my gut feelings kept telling me otherwise. I kept bringing those issues up again and again. I'm a bit like a terrier in that regard. In the end she got really angry. I only had the options to submit or to leave....

What I'm wondering now: Could this final rupture have been prevented, if she had been more open about her feelings of countertransference? If she'd admitted that she feels unnerved by my persistence, that she felt that we were wrestling with each other. If she didn't just blame my transference (which was definitely there) but also if she'd been open to me about her countertransference to some appropriate degree.... I don't know.

Yeah, I think I'm going to avoid the term counter-transference and go with just my perception of a reaction or shift in her concept. Because I guess it really doesn't matter why she is having the shift, if she really is even having one, as much as it is important that I be allowed to voice these nuances in her body language and us talk about them with her being honest about my perception when I do bring it up. I say this is important because I do this in all my interactions and based on my perceptions of the exchange/energy, I can easily shut down. I don't necessarily personalize what is going on, I become unsure how to proceed so it's more like walking on egg shells for me, not sure where the bombs are or when someone will get set off. I'll also question the safety and trust of the relationship.

Making friends is a goal of mine. So...... Monday's topic is set.

Current T has brought up her countertransference / her feelings (which she sometimes called projective identification / projection) towards me — it’s always been in the sense of her feeling maternal / “Mama Bear-ish” (her words) towards me.

Every time though it’s been either when she’s thought I was doing something crazy (E.g. sudden road trips) or when I’ve been really angry at her (and sort of accusing her of screwing me over).

So, I’m not sure if I really believe any of it — when I insisted that her angry responses toward me were driven by her stuff, she refused to acknowledge that it was the case and just said it’s a normal response.

I do believe that she cares about me and goes out of her way (things well beyond what she’s paid for) to make sure I’m okay.

There are of course moments of deep connection but I don’t necessarily think it’s anything related to transference/countertransference specifically (although I’m sure it’s all connected).

I think it's probably wise to avoid the phrase countertransference and just talk about what you observe or sense from her. I remember once getting sort of upset/unsettled because my T seemed off in session and I didn't know why (I do tend to personalize things). I brought it up, thinking she was uncomfortable or feeling negatively toward me, and she admitted that she was feeling tired that day. It made perfect sense for what I was perceiving, so I was able to accept her answer and move on.

I guess my only other question is how you would feel or respond if she doesn't know what you're talking about or won't admit to it. Definitely not a reason not to ask about it, but something to consider before going in, I think.

I think the word counter transference is so distracting and not a very real description of what is actually happening in the room for the therapist.
I think when we use the word counter transference it specifically describes the feelings of what we evoke in the therapist and not what is actually happening between you.
I remember last month asking my t what was going on for her because she wasn’t very present and was getting emotionally upset at what I was talking about because it was triggering her own heartbreak. Once I mentioned it she said, yes, she was feeling flat and noticed she was feeling that hurt. She apologised and said there was stuff going on. I appreciated her honesty and her ability to put that aside and carry on. If she had of said no I am fine or it’s none business this is about you, I wouldn’t be able to work with a blank slate t.
I think it depends on how relational your t is too.
My t has been trained as a relational t and so have I so we can be open and honest with each other.

Yeah, I've been considering what would I feel if she said that nothing was going on with her. I think talking about when not in the moment of one of these perceived shifts is a good idea. That way we can talk about it more in terms how would each of us respond type of deal. Or so I hope.

My T has been a really good match for me. She has almost 100% of the time made things about me even when I'm talking about her or my feelings towards her, which is one of the top consistent topics we discuss - other things come and go. There was one time I felt like she was slightly defensive. I'm very sensitive to those types of responses so I don't trust that she was actually defensive. We've been working together now for 27 months and there was that one time and then last Thursday where I felt things came into the space in a possibly negative way. There's been several times where I've felt things come into the space in a positive way.

Lots of my thoughts around this discussion is in my journal so regardless if I verbalize or leave it for her to read, she'll know my thoughts here. I think this is one of those topics I need to address with her in person otherwise, I think I will have a panic attack between sessions not knowing how she took my thoughts. Granted, yes I can pull the stuff from my journal. It's peppered throughout my journal so good chance I'll miss some of it.

Thanks everyone for their input. It's a tough topic to figure out how to handle.

I agree, and I understand how you feel when you say it's like walking on eggshells when you pick up on something and don't know how to proceed. I told my therapist that she knows where my landmines are, but I don't know where hers are. On my end, it feels a lot more treacherous to navigate blindly like that.

I really like that analogy and I agree. It makes me think of when I accidentally triggered T's anxiety around privacy. I had no idea he had that particular anxiety; how could I? So it was a shock when I hit it.

So amazingly true... this is why I drive myself insane in therapy...I always worry about what I say or do and what may happen

This is such a timely topic for me. I’ve been in therapy for 4 months and I triggered my T’s countertransference last week. I’ve been increasingly upset about it since I’ve left his office, so much so that I drafted an email (which I have not sent) saying I think I want to quit therapy. He’s been gentle and empathetic so far and I feel like I don’t know what hit me. I’d rather not have to hold back and worry about hurting his feelings.