Countertransference Feelings Research Articles

Parental Narcissism and the Disengagement of the Non-Custodial Father After Divorce

This paper argues that dominant narcissistic tendencies may keep certain non-custodial fathers from maintaining stable relationships with their children after divorce. It identifies the common characteristics and behaviors of the narcissistic non-custodial father to show the special difficulties he faces in the divorce process. Its main contention, made on the basis of the literature and with the help of two case descriptions, is that divorce and loss of custody pose a special threat to the narcissist's weak self and that the narcissistic father's post-divorce litigation and disengagement both stem from his driving need to maintain the “grandiose self” that protects his vulnerable and fragile core. Furthermore, the paper suggests that the family therapy framework cannot meet the needs of the narcissistic non-custodial father in the post divorce period. It urges that family care professionals be taught to recognize the common behaviors of narcissistic non-custodial fathers in relation to both their children and the helping professionals they consult and be made aware of the strong counter-transference feelings that such clients may evoke in them. It argues, too, that the focus of the treatment be moved to the mother and, especially, the children.

Victoria: A Study of the Countertransference Through Poetry Writing

In the present work the analyst uses herself and her poetry writing as heuristic tools in the study of the countertransference during the treatment of a woman immersed in the alcoholic syndrome. The poems presented here are shown to have served a multiplicity of functions: (a) as a means to record, document and study countertransferential feelings, (b) as holding environments or containers, (c) at times as diagnostic tools, and finally, (d) as developmental signposts of the treatment process.

The Wish to Become a Mother

Summary Therapists who treat pregnant women while trying to conceive themselves have a variety of emotional reactions. These countertransferential feelings are outlined and discussed from the view of one therapist attempting to become a mother herself.

Acerca de la contratransferencia: ¿obstáculo o instrumento?

El artículo discute las distintas perspectivas que dentro del mismo psicoanálisis existen sobre el estatuto de la contratransferencia en el proceso terapéutico. Mientras que para unos (la tendencia clásica) ésta debe ser radicalmente reprimida para salvaguardar el ideal de una neutralidad aséptica, para otros (la tendencia humanista) ésta puede ser incorporada para consolidar los aspectos externos y reales de la alianza terapéutica. Junto con la postura clásica de Theodor Reik y la más moderna de Harold Searles, el autor plantea que los sentimientos y reacciones contratransferenciales pueden ser usados como un instrumento legítimo que oriente tanto la relación con el paciente como la labor interpretativa.

Managing the Countertransference Through Poetry Writing

In this paper the analyst poet presents the process of poetry writing as a method for the study and management of countertransference feelings in the treatment of patients with varying degrees of pathology. The poems included here are products of conscious and unconscious communication between analyst and analysand and are shown to serve a number of functions, such as recording documenting, exploring and analyzing countertransferential feelings. In one example, a poem also functioned as a diagnostic tool in the case of a depressed man.

The patient's contribution to the therapist's countertransference feelings.

Countertransference feelings of psychiatric milieu therapists toward their patients were studied by using a self-report feeling word checklist. The feelings were scored on subscales of feeling states in a circumplex model. By using an analysis of variance model, comparisons between reactions to patients individually and reactions to patients with different personality organizations and with different Health-sickness rating scale scores could be made. A total number of 244 therapists at 21 small treatment homes were studied. It was found that approximately 15% of the therapists' countertransference feeling reactions could be accounted for by recurrent reactions to patients individually. Surprisingly, the personality organization and the Health-sickness rating scale score of the patient accounted for almost no variance in therapists' feelings. The results are discussed, and possible explanations are evaluated.

Unravelling Countertransference

ABSTRACTIn this paper I will be looking at the nature of the transference relationship, and asking whether it can be seen as a template for understanding other relationships outside the analytical setting. I will be positing the idea that there are relationships with profound similarities to the analytic relationship in areas as diverse as the creative arts and family generations. It is my feeling that through a close inspection of creative transference relationships, such as the relationship between a reader and a text, we can begin to understand how dyadic transference relations are formed and acted out. I am also hoping to show that through other transference relationships we can learn to interpret and analyse the feelings of countertransference. I am suggesting that transference and countertransference feelings are not restricted to the analytical setting.

"Someday ..." and "if only ..." fantasies: pathological optimism and inordinate nostalgia as related forms of idealization.

Fantasies whose core is constituted by the notions of "someday" and "if only" are ubiquitous in human psyche. In severe character pathology, however, these fantasies have a particularly tenacious, defensive, and ego-depleting quality. The "someday" fantasy idealizes the future and fosters optimism, and the "if only" fantasy idealizes the past and lays the groundwork for nostalgia. The two fantasies originate in the narcissistic disequilibrium consequent upon the early mother-child separation experiences, though the oedipal conflict also contributes to them. Both can be employed as defenses against defective self and object constancy as well as later narclssistic and oedipal traumas. This paper attempts to highlight the metapsychology and behavioral consequences of these fantasies as well as their unfolding in the treatment situation. It suggests six tasks to be especially important for analytic work with such patients: (1) providing and sustaining a meaningful "holding environment"; (2) employing "affirmative interventions"; (3) helping the patient unmask these fantasies and interpreting their defensive, narcissistic and sadomasochistic aspects; (4) rupturing the patient's excessive hope, analyzing the effects of such rupture, and facilitating the resultant mourning; (5) reconstructing the early scenarios underlying the need for excessive hope; and (6) paying careful attention to countertransference feelings throughout such work.

Whose disability?Countertransference in work with people with disabilities

Abstract Some of the meanings which disability and illness may have for therapists or counsellors as well as for their clients are examined. The effect of a client's illness or disability on the counsellor as well as on the client has to be taken into consideration. Under the pressure of countertransference feelings arising from both client and counsellor the counselling itself may be disabled. The counsellor may have unrealistically limited expectations of an ill or disabled client's ability to tolerate painful emotions. Difficulty in relating to ill clients as parents in particular is discussed.

Sources of Therapists' Countertransference Feelings

Milieu therapists' feelings toward their patients in three treatment homes for psychotic patients were measured with a feeling word checklist. The answers were examined with regard to two feeling dimensions: helpfulness and closeness. By using a two-way ANOVA, contributions to the therapist's countertransference feelings could be separated into three parts: those that belong to the therapist's habitual way of reacting toward patients, those that are reciprocal reactions to the patient's habitual way of evoking reactions, and, finally unique reactions, characterizing the recurrent feelings of a certain therapist toward a certain patient, apart from the habitual patterns. It was found that all three factors contributed significantly to the therapist's feelings. The therapist's style contributed substantially to feelings of helpfulness, as well as to feelings of closeness. The contribution from the patient's recurrent evocative style was most conspicuous regarding the therapist's helpfulness and less so concerning closeness. The unique reactions contributed strongly both to the therapist's helpfulness and to his or her closeness.

Danger or Opportunity

SUMMARY Countertransference is the sine qua non of all human relationships. The manner in which the couples therapist deals with countertransferential feelings can have a powerful impact as either a force for healing or a force for destruction. Based on the tenets of Integrity Therapy, this paper offers a philosophical and clinical examination of countertransference in couples therapy. Focusing on the areas of rigid adherence to therapeutic dogma, emotional expression at all costs, negative countertransference and projective identification, teaching unauthentic ways of interacting, and co-therapy issues, this paper explores the ways in which traditional dynamic, humanistic and emotionally centered couple therapies can both therapist and patient into a betrayed of self and of the couple relationship.

The Power of Countertransference in Groups for the Severely Mentally Ill

Research on countertransference within groups run on psychoanalytical-psychotherapy principles with chronically psychotic inpatients showed a consistency of countertransference feelings in different facilitators at different phases of the groups. The phases resembled those encountered in bereavement. The strength of the countertransference in facilitators of groups may hinder the sharing of the experience and may result in unwanted effects on the staff, including physical illness. This paper emphasizes the importance of dealing adequately with countertransference in staff treating severely psychotic patients.

Sexual Excitement and Countertransference Love in the Analyst

The psychoanalytic literature has been remarkably silent on the subject of erotic countertransference feelings. The recent emphasis on transference-countertransference enactments in the analytic setting has resulted in increased openness about development of such feelings. Several key themes appear to be involved in the analyst's sexual excitement, including loss of the "as-if" nature of transference and countertransference, a measure of hostility and contempt, the perception of a deficit state in the patient, a defense against loss and mourning, and oedipal and preoedipal enactments involving a variety of gender configurations. These themes are illustrated with clinical material. The differences between those analysts who contain and constructively process erotic countertransference and those who destructively act it out are also discussed. The crucial role of consultation with a colleague is emphasized as a valuable recourse.

An ethical dilemma in psychotherapy

This paper examines the ethical principles of justice and autonomy in psychotherapy. A case history is presented which illustrates how ethical dilemmas concerning the type of psychotherapy to be offered are powerfully influenced by often unconscious counter-transference feelings in the resource allocators. The question of how autonomous a psychotherapy patient can be, when unconscious motivations could be affecting rational choice, is also explored and possible answers provided.

The Experience of Being a Pregnant Group Therapist

This paper concentrates on the impact that the group analyst's pregnancy had on a therapeutic group, highlighting the themes evoked, the transference issues that emerged and the countertransference feelings that impinged on the therapist's analytical thinking. The case material and group process is understood in relation to published literature on the subject, establishing the common ground between the individual and group reactions to the interruption of the reality of the therapist's life into the therapeutic setting. The general belief that this material can be usefully analysed and employed to the overall benefit of the patients' therapy in the group is confirmed.

Countertransference love and theoretical model

The analyst's countertransference feelings of love, particularly sexual love, have been subject to minimal examination in the literature. In this era of expanding psychoanalytical models, it appears that some theories of therapeutic action lend themselves more to addressing such themes than do others. There is always considerable overlap among psychoanalytic models, although there are nonetheless some clear differences in the way countertransference affect is experienced, filtered, and utilized.

The functions of a psychotherapy unit in a psychiatric hospital — Refracted through the lenses of trainee psychiatrists

SUMMARY Only a small proportion of patients seen at a psychiatric hospital such as the Maudsley Hospital are referred for an assessment for psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In this study, junior doctors were interviewed regarding forty-two consecutive referrals to the Maudsley Psychotherapy Unit. In many cases there was a strong sense of identification between referring doctor and referred patient, and in almost all cases the patients referred evoked a strong countertransference reaction in the referring psychiatrists. A disproportionate number of referrals were made as psychiatrists were about to rotate from one ward to another. Referrals to the Psychotherapy Unit seem to represent a complex mix of strong countertransference feelings evoked in the referrer, institutional factors including interpersonal rivalries, and patient characteristics. The majority of patients referred to the Psychotherapy Unit were thought to have both a mental illness and a personality disorder by their referring psychiatrists; and,...

Countertransference as a corrective emotional experience in existential family therapy

An existential approach to family psychotherapy should be cognizant of both individual human development and family life cycle growth. In Existential Family Therapy a family developmental challenge often occurs when the developmental progression needs of one family member challenge the pace of total family developmental progression. In such a situation intervention by the therapist should occur in a way that facilitates both individual and family developmental growth. Such interventions often best occur through the creative and controlled use of the family therapist's countertransference feelings in a way that helps the family accept and master its developmental challenges. Case material is provided to illustrate the described intervention approach.

Clinical dilemmas: therapists treating therapists.

Psychotherapists who treat therapist-patients confront a range of intense, often unexpected, countertransferential feelings that threaten to intrude on the course of treatment. The experience of the treating therapist is examined and discussed with particular attention to implications for clinical practice.

Is love in the analytic relationship “real”?

This article considers three related questions: (a) Are positive transference and countertransference feelings imitations of true loving feelings or are they real? (b) What is the difference between a loving analytic relationship and an ordinary loving relationship? (c) What is the nature of the tension created in the analyst by the opposing tendencies of the relatively anonymous asymmetry in the analytic relationship and the self-revealing mutuality in an ordinary loving relationship?