When Sigmund Freud made the discovery of transference and countertransference in the therapeutic relationship, a window into the worlds of both therapist and client was irrevocably opened and locked in place. It is in transference and countertransference that we see behind the mask of both therapist and client, that we see their vulnerable hearts that so easily love, and yet so easily bruise. Looking into this window we see the many reasons for a person to react in a given way in a given situation and we see the depth to which one has resolved his/her past issues.
Transference and countertransference issues can play such a large part in the therapeutic process that a detailed look at what each is and how each works (or doesn't work) is warranted. What are the pros and cons of both? How can they be useful and what can they teach us about ourselves?
Transference is the phenomenon where the client reacts to the therapist not objectively as a real person but as a virtual reincarnation of a parent or other significant figure from the client's past. More generally, "transference is used to label any feelings the client expresses toward the counselor" (Peterson and Nisenholz, 1995, p.105).
This is to say that if "Jim" grew up with a demanding father, a person of authority throughout Jim's life, and if Jim has unresolved feelings such as fear or anger caused by his conscious or unconscious memories of his demanding father, Jim could end up responding to all male authority figures as he has to his father. Maybe he will constantly feel the need to defend his actions and become argumentative. And if the therapist is male, and therefore a male authority figure, the transference of Jim's unresolved feelings onto the therapist is highly likely (Peterson and Nisenholz, 1995, p.105).
Transference reactions can be played out in ways other than the way the original situation was felt and experienced. The client may play out the transference as he/she desires or hoped it would have taken place, instead of the way it actually did (Kahn, 1991).
Jim, instead of reacting to male authority figures in the fashion described in the last scenario (which is just one possibility of many), could be searching for, in his current reactions to male authority figures, the loving and nurturing father figure he did not have. One example could be that in his relationships with male authority figures Jim always does his best to please, hoping to receive favorable praise or "love and nurturance" for his deeds. In therapy, Jim could feel the need to respond in a manner he believes the therapist wants him to, rather than the way Jim actually feels. (Kahn, 1991).
Transference is not looked upon identically by different schools of therapeutic thought. Freudian psychology, the practice of psychoanalysis, holds transference as a necessary and most desired piece of the therapeutic process and something that, given the chance, the client will probably produce with no prompting from the counselor. It is believed by Freudians that should the client experience a truly intense transference reaction it is possible for the client to "relive" the past in the therapy session and successfully resolve the issues causing the transference. The counselor, often being more accepting of the client than the people who, in part, caused the original feelings to occur, creates an atmosphere conducive to the client's being able to resolve the issues (Peterson and Nisenholz, 1995).
Some believe that transference experiences pervade our everyday existence. "It [transference] doesn't apply only to clients and therapists; it applies to all of us in all our relationships. Everywhere we go, we are ceaselessly replaying some aspect or other of our early life" (Kahn, 1991, p.26).
How many of us find ourselves in heated arguments about things that, when we really give them thought, don't truly mean that much to us? Our current arguments may often or always include issues from our past that remain unresolved and rear their heads when we least expect it. How many of us have found ourselves time and again in intimate relationships that just are not satisfying? Are we really choosing our mates for who they are, or do we choose them for their similarity to someone in our past, possibly someone who we could never please or who we really wanted to please us but couldn't?
Therapists that are taught the Freudian perspective in counseling would want to look at our past issues to see what the basis is for our reactions to situations in the present. But this is the viewpoint of Freudians, not of Humanists like Carl Rogers or some other schools of therapeutic thought.
"Some neo-Freudians, as well as humanists and behaviorists, pay more attention to here-and-now problems. They believe that personality change can occur without the client's regressing to infantile neuroses" (Peterson and Nisenholz, 1995, p.105).
Carl Rogers' Humanist perspective found that transference need not be essential to the therapeutic relationship. Rogers' ideas were based on the use of love in the therapeutic relationship, love being defined via the Greek word agape. "Agape, on the other hand, is characterized by the desire to fulfill the beloved. It demands nothing in return and wants only the growth and fulfillment of the loved one. Agape, is a strengthening love, a love that, by definition, does not burden or obligate the loved one" (Kahn, 1991, p.37).
Humanist therapy wasn't bogged down in what theory or type of therapy you utilized as long as within the therapist-client interactions agape was conveyed. If agape was conveyed, changes in the client could take place naturally and in a healthy, healing way. The past need not be examined in order to change the now, the now could change the now (Kahn, 1991).
Speaking about love brings us to some possible downsides of transference. While agape is a healthful form of love that can be utilized in a therapeutic relationship, another form of love, erotic love in the form of transference, can bring an end to successful therapy if the therapist cannot get the patient to relinquish his/her desire for the therapist's love (Kahn, 1991; Kottler, 1993). This is often not an easy task. As Kottler (1993, p.131) states, "If the feelings are discussed directly and the therapist gently yet firmly rejects the overtures, the client may feel humiliated and rejected. If transference feelings are interpreted, the client may fall back on denial. Yet if the therapist attempts to back off and let things ride for a while, the seductive efforts may escalate."
Also, negative feelings for the therapist can place looming road blocks in the therapeutic process. Freud believed that it was the job of the therapist to provide to the patient an interpretation of the negative feelings as the transference of feelings from early childhood and to attempt to create an understanding for the patient about why the patient was projecting the transference onto the therapist. But should the patient not accept this interpretation, the transference could, once again, bring an end to the therapeutic process (Kahn, 1991).
And what of countertransference? Having discussed what the client/patient may project onto the therapist, what about the feelings that clients/patients can evoke in the therapist that the therapist then projects onto the client, a situation that seems inevitable? The definition of countertransference is not as succinct as the one for transference. I include here the definitions from two separate books with different authors.
"Generally, in psychoanalytical terms, it [the term countertransference] is reserved for situations in which the client's behavior invokes in the counselor conflicts relating to unresolved situations in the counselor's life, causing the counselor to respond to the client in a nonobjective way" (Peterson and Nisenholz, 1995, p.106)."
"The term countertransference is used in several ways - as a reference to all the feelings a therapist has toward a client, as the therapist's reactions to a client's transference, or as the therapist's own transference feelings toward a client" (Kottler, 1993, p.116).
One interesting thing about countertransference is that although therapists can't agree on a precise definition for it, it is usually portrayed as the "demon" that counselors need be wary of.
"It is generally agreed, however, that the phenomenon is not beneficial to the helping process" (Peterson and Nisenholz, 1995, p.106).
"To this phenomenon Freud gave the name countertransference, and he saw it as an obstacle" (Kahn, 1991, p.117).
Why is it that the definition for countertransference has not been made more precise, more like the definition for transference? Is it they way that countertransference has always been looked upon, as if it was an unsightly stigma? Do therapists fear admitting how much they are just like their clients, that they are human, and therefore imperfect too?
While countertransference can be a serious problem if not handled correctly and head on, it would be premature to completely write it off as bad. It has great potential for teaching us about ourselves and our clients. First though, I will give an example of how countertransference could be detrimental to the therapy process.
A man named James comes to you for counseling. Over time he reveals that he was physically abused as a child by his mother and feels that this has much to do with his low self-esteem, intense anger at and need to please his female partner. You, as the counselor, were also beaten as a child and have never been able to confront your feelings about it.
Because of your discomfort with the subject of physical abuse, maybe you will steer the conversation away from the topic, blocking James' need to express his feelings about it and making James feel as if you have minimized his issues. Maybe you would let him talk about it as you go cold inside, giving minimal feedback and causing James to feel a growing chasm between the two of you. Or maybe you will begin self disclosing about your own physical abuse, robbing the client of the focus his issues deserve while you use the session to fill your own needs.
Any of the above scenarios, and many more, is possible when therapists do not control their countertransference reactions. Of course, the worst countertransference reactions can be terribly harmful and dangerous to both client and therapist, such as when the therapist allows a sexually intimate relationship to take place with a client. "When reactive feelings are ignored, denied, distorted and projected, both the client's treatment and the therapist's mental health suffer" (Kottler, 1993, p.120)
Peterson and Nisenholz (1995, p.106) make reference to countertransference
"causing the counselor to respond to the client in a nonobjective way."
Do therapists ever respond to a client in an objective way? Are we not all creatures of our own socialization and experiences? To be totally objective the therapist would have to stand outside everything he/she has learned in life and that seems quite impossible. Further, might not our experiences, our "nonobjectivenesses" so to speak, help us to have greater insight and aid us in being better therapists? Can countertransference be useful?
Kahn (1991) talks about a client he had who could not seem to advance in his professional life. The client was a professional who had obtained graduate degrees, yet "he managed regularly to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" (p.116). In talking with the client Kahn discovered the client has a mentally challenged brother who the client considers to be "the most loving person he ever knew and his best friend" (p.116).
Kahn decided to focus on the phenomenon of survivor guilt, the feeling of the client that he was leaving someone he loved far behind. "It's not surprising that I focused on this; my younger sister was born severely brain-damaged and has been in an institution most of her life" (p.116). Kahn goes on to explain that one of the many feelings he experiences toward his sister is a good portion of survivor guilt. But, he also states, "As I look back on my work with that client, I am grateful that my own conflicts so quickly directed my attention to his survivor guilt, an area that turned out to be very fruitful" (p.117).
Would Kahn have been so quick to recognize this area of pain to be explored in the client had he not had a countertransference reaction? Does this show that countertransference can be controlled and made into an ally at times? "Some theorists, such as Weisman (1973) and Cerney (1985) consider intense therapist reactions, when recognized, to be crucial in diagnosing how others probably respond to the client" (Kottler, 1993, p.120).
It is up to the therapist whether countertransference will be helpful or detrimental. The therapist must notice the reactions and take the time to understand them in order for them to be useful or properly put to rest. "Only when we are willing to identify and explore how we feel about our clients and how it affects our clinical judgment can we ever hope to harness this energy constructively" (Kottler, 1993, p.122)
It is only when therapists ask themselves to do the same work as the client, to look deep inside themselves and discover, observe, weigh and understand their thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions to their world that transference, countertransference and the entire therapeutic process becomes constructive.
Bibliography
1) Peterson, Vincent J. and Nisenholz, Bernard (1995). Orientation to Counseling Third Edition. Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon. 2) Kahn, Michael (1991). Between Therapist and Client. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 3) Kottler, Jeffrey A. (1993). On Being a Therapist. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.