Posted by mila on July 17, 2001, at 22:54:12
In reply to Countertransference?, posted by Willow on July 17, 2001, at 22:35:12
Hi Willow,
transference, is when you confuse your therapist with your parent/authority figure from your past (unconsciously generalise your emotional responses to the therapist and therapy situation), and act your feelings out (behave timidly if you were timid with your parents, or with jealousy if you were jealous of your parents, etc. therapist uses such responses to teach you that other behavior is possible with the authority figures). Countertransference is when the therapist gets caught in this illusion and starts to believe that you are their daughter and acts accordingly! It comes as a reaction to your enfatuation with them, or whatever. It is the worst thing that can happen for a therapist: to begin accepting the adulation and using the power of primary transferences in the relationship.
Also, countertransference is when the therapist sees you for something you are not generally (unconscious generalizations to client by therapist).
Both terms are very loose and it is debated whether these processes actually happen at all. Some therapists argue that everything that happens in therapy is about real ongoing relationship between two people, and that there is no need to imply that both therapist and client perceive each other as a replicate of a third person. What is is. That's it.
mila
poster:mila
thread:7541
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010717/msgs/7575.html