I wonder can we resolve transference with the therapist it is aimed at? I'd like to quit going but I have a feeling this solves nothing?
Transference and countertransference
You see, these strategies are less effective if your state shifts too much from your baseline as we often do when we get stressed (. if you get activated). That's why they work sometimes and not others.
Theory and Practice of Counselling
Can you explain this statement and bit more? It's a reaction I've had often, and I'm trying to understand why I have it. "Lay people sometimes use this point of view to invalidate another person's experience: Stop reacting to me like I'm your mother. I'm not her."
Thought Power / How to Control Thoughts - Yoga
Dear Joseph,
I think transference abuse or boundary violations are much more common than the field acknowledges, especially for poor clients like myself. Out of seven therapists so far only one has not said or implied they were doing me a favor just for taking my insurance. Also six out of seven told me about their own problems, including what they did not like about their job and clients. When I read your articles about payments and not taking insurance, do you think as a poor client I just got what I deserved?
According to the totalistic definition, transference is dynamic rather than static. It is produced by clients as they derive positive or negative meaning from their therapists' seemingly benevolent or malevolent words and actions. Noticing such indicators of attitude as voice quality, degree of energy, level of professionalism, and person-to-person warmth, clients quickly project their feelings and attitudes toward pre- or non-therapeutic persons onto their therapist. Moreover, they make their projections forceful and intense when they encounter a particular therapist who has easily noticeable traits that they associate with their relational conflicts.
Within the context of therapy specifically, therapies can create an environment that will increase the possibility of clients living up to their potential, or they can create an environment that is detrimental to them. Similarly, therapists themselves may directly or indirectly support or oppose the status quo in regard to social injustices, including racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, by focusing on individual difficulties and naming pathologies while ignoring the social context of individual challenges.
Therapists who unconsciously hold the belief that they are and should be benevolent and self-giving and that clients should be able to use them to obtain whatever they need are especially vulnerable to acting out the Mother Archetype. In the beginning, their belief appears benign, even beneficial. It assures therapists that they can be unconditionally empathic and totally available to their clients.
I saw an attractive female therapist. She was good at being empathetic, non-judging, and attuned to me during our time. I saw her both in individual and group therapy. It wasn't till about a year after I started when i first noticed the transference. She seemed a little distant and depressed in our group sessions. We asked her about it and she said she was going through something big but wouldn't disclose it. When she finally did disclose she said it was because she felt not telling us would be crazy making for us. She announced she had gotten divorced. It took me by surprise. I think her husband had left her.
If the former therapist won 8767 t help and has moved on, there 8767 s no choice but to find someone new, and hopefully more effective, to help.
This can be a difficult balancing act because therapists who feel used for more than a short time begin to feel abused. Even if they are not hostile, clients who are demanding can soon cause their therapists to dislike them. Even non-demanding clients who share their pervasive negative feelings with their therapists are asking that the latter absorb that negative affectivity a term used repeatedly in the DSM-5 (Kupfer, 7568) session after session. Consequently, therapists can begin to resent their clients. Then they may experience a need to retaliate.
"Counter transference issues in counseling" in pictures. More images "Counter transference issues in counseling".
