Examples of countertransference include when the therapist: Pushed the client to take action the client doesn’t feel ready for. Wants to relate outside of the therapy room. Inappropriately disclosed personal information. Develops romantic feelings for the client.
What are the two types of countertransference?
Post-Jungians such as Fordham7 have gone on to distinguish between two types of countertransference: the illusory and the syntonic. The illusory is stirred up in the therapist’s unconscious from unresolved issues and conflicts in her own psyche.
What is the difference of transference and countertransference?
In contrast to transference (which is about the client’s emotional reaction to the therapist), countertransference can be defined as the therapist’s emotional reaction to the client. Similarly to transference, countertransference is a common occurrence in therapy.
What are signs of countertransference?
Four signs of countertransference are:
- Failing to maintain healthy boundaries.
- Extreme emotional reactions to your behavior.
- Inappropriate romantic or sexual behavior.
- Inappropriate self-disclosure.
What are examples of countertransference? – Related Questions
What is countertransference behavior?
Countertransference, which occurs when a therapist transfers emotions to a person in therapy, is often a reaction to transference, a phenomenon in which the person in treatment redirects feelings for others onto the therapist.
Is countertransference a defense mechanism?
Some countertransference reactions toward a client can be understood as a result of defense mechanisms to counterbalance negative emotions when listening to the client’s trauma stories.
What triggers transference?
For example, transference in therapy happens when a patient attaches anger, hostility, love, adoration, or a host of other possible feelings onto their therapist or doctor. Therapists know this can happen.
What is positive and negative countertransference?
Positive: The therapist is over-supportive, trying too hard to befriend their client, and disclosing too much. This can damage the therapeutic relationship. Negative: The therapist acts out against uncomfortable feelings in a negative way, including being overly critical and punishing or rejecting the client.
How do you counteract countertransference?
Practical ways to help manage transference and
- Empathy.
- Self-insight.
- Conceptual ability.
- High therapist self-integration (i.e. the less unresolved inner conflicts the therapist has)
- Low therapist anxiety.
What is the impact of countertransference?
Destructive countertransference patterns can have a significant and pervasive effect on the counseling relationship. They can erode any sense of trust or rapport that may have developed between counselor and client.
Is countertransference a projection?
Countertransference has been viewed as the therapist’s reaction to projections of the client onto the therapist. It has been defined as the redirection of a therapist’s feelings toward a patient and the emotional entanglement that can occur with a patient (Fink, 2011).
How common is countertransference in therapy?
The intense emotional experience of countertransference in psychotherapy also is not rare. Some studies have reported that 95 percent of male therapists and 76 percent of female therapists admit that they felt sexual feelings toward their patients.
Should countertransference be avoided?
Countertransference can cause damage to the therapist-client relationship. Therapists should always remain aware that they are not immune from the effects of countertransference and always be willing to do what is best for their clients. Even if that means referring them to someone else.
Is empathy a countertransference?
The term countertransference should be reserved exclusively for the conscious reactions of the analyst emerging from the preconscious by virtue of the patient’s current transferences; the term empathy should be used to denote a perspective whereby the analyst employs current countertransference reactions for an
How do therapists deal with transference?
To end a transference pattern, one can try to actively separate the person from the template by looking for differences. Transference reactions usually point to a deeper issue or unfinished business from the past.
Is countertransference an ethical issue?
Countertransference, on the other hand, refers to feelings a clinician has being transferred onto a client. Although this occasionally happens to therapists with good boundaries, transference or countertransference combined with blurred boundaries can equate to ethical violations.
How did Freud define countertransference?
The concept of countertransference, originally coined by Freud as the unresolved, reactivated transference dispositions of the analyst is currently defined as the total affective disposition of the analyst in response to the patient and his/her transference, shifting from moment to moment, and providing important data
Is there positive countertransference?
There are two types of countertransference: negative and positive. Positive countertransference may be used to some benefit in a therapist-client relationship.
What is defensive countertransference?
Defensive countertransference arises from the therapist’s own conflicts which are reflected in his reactions to the patient and to the treatment. Reactive countertransferences are the therapist’s responses to the impact of strong emotions directed toward him by the patient.
What are the three types of transference?
Types of Transference
- Positive transference.
- Negative transference.
- Sexualized transference.
