The therapist's feelings.

Abstract

Emotions are complex whole-person responses that involve behavioral dimensions as diverse as muscular activity, subjective experience, attention and thinking, and not infrequently (but not necessarily) have a rapid onset outside awareness (Lang, 1970; 1988; Leventhal, 1984; Mauss, Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm & Gross, 2005). Their seemingly imperative quality and the fact that we feel them come from within may sometimes distract us from seeing they are signals that tell about our contact with the outside world. However, that is exactly where their value lies. The contribution emotions can have to our wellbeing is directly related to the way they influence our interaction with our environment. Emotions often involve salient bodily sensations and appraisals related to what is going on at the moment between us and our environment and to what action we are prepared to take. They also involve focusing our attention to identify specific data that make particular sense in the context of the ongoing emotion. These include, for instance, options for creative activity in the context of positive emotions (Frederickson & Branigan, 2005) or potential threats and options for avoidance in the context of anxiety (Leventhal, 1984; Lang, 1988). The effects of positive emotions are much less specific than those of negative ones. For example, positive emotions most often do not focus attention on specific objects, nor do they generally promote a particular action tendency. Instead, they enhance new initiatives and openness to experience, including openness to negative feedback about our behavior and they broaden the variety of options for action (Frederickson & Branigan, 2005). Feelings in therapy Client feelings are the primary target for change in classical behavior therapy, which has historically taken a strong interest in the functions and process of anxiety (Lang, 1970; Rachman, 1980). The most important role of emotion in cognitive therapy, on the other hand, is its use in identifying cognitive targets for change. Inappropriate or excessive emotional reactions provide good clues to related dysfunctional cognition (Beck, Rush, Shaw & Emery, 1979). In psychodynamic therapy, working through transference feelings is a traditional focus. What the client feels toward the therapist is not actually related to the present experience, but to other, past, relationships. Transference feelings are typically understood in terms of neurotic conflicts. Similarly, the feelings of the therapist toward the client are often described as counter-transference. While counter-transference feelings are at times used as clues for diagnosis or for fine-tuned understanding of clinical processes, they are a function of the analyst's psyche and would hinder progress in analysis when the clinician acts on them (Freud, 1958/1910; Kernberg, Selzer & Koenigsberg, 1989). In the literature on marriage and marital therapy, feelings play many roles. Negative feelings toward the partner, toward particular attitudes or toward the relationship in itself can be the very problem clients seek treatment for. When there are other goals for treatment, negative feelings may still need to be addressed because they hinder progress toward effective communication and problem-solving (Gottman, 1994; Jacobson & Christensen, 1996). Emotions can also be used as therapeutic aids to produce change in couples (Greenberg & Johnson, 1986). Furthermore, teaching the couple healthy ways of dealing with feelings is an important topic in its own right (Greenberg & Goldman, 2008; Fruzzetti, 2006). Various brands of therapy agree that emotions provide information and help process experiences (e.g. Rachman, 1980; Linehan, 1993; Greenberg, 2002). In order to take full advantage of this aid, it is often suggested that one must be aware of the difference between what one feels and who one is. …