Using Clinical Supervision to Address Counter- Transference
No matter how hard we try to deny it, therapists are people too. And as people, we are fallible, we make mistakes and we allow our past experiences to guide our current behaviours. There likely isn’t a person in the world who can remain truly objective in every situation and therapists are no different.
We aren’t expected to not have emotions. We aren’t expected to not have reactions. We are, however, expected to be aware of these emotions and automatic reactions and work to mitigate their effect on the client relationship.
Countertransference is simply the therapist projecting their own unresolved issues onto the client. If you are a therapist who has no unresolved issues at all in your personal life, then congratulations! This doesn’t apply to you. But the rest of us need to be acutely aware of how our own issues can affect the clients we serve.
What Countertransference Looks Like
It can be a cumbersome term that is hard to follow at first. Examples always help:
You were suspended from high school many years ago for something you swear you didn’t do. Upon learning your teenage client was recently suspended in a similar manner, you are filled with feelings of resentment, distrust and anger
You have experienced infidelity in a past relationship. Your client confesses to cheating on their partner and your facial reactions show disgust and disdain, causing your client to shut down and negatively affecting the therapeutic relationship;
You were raised in a foster home; you work with a client living in a foster home and you start thinking about this client in off-hours and obsessing about how you can help them, going above and beyond your role as a therapist and dedicating much more time to this client at the expense of your other clients;
You are working with a client struggling with substance use disorder. Your father was a heavy drinker and was able to stop on his own and never never drank again. You fault your client for continuously relapsing.
Clinical Supervision and Countertransference
There are endless possible scenarios and remember, you are not expected to not have reactions similar to the ones noted above. You are, however, expected to be aware of those reactions and where they stem from and seek out clinical supervision to discuss it. It’s ok to feel a bit of hostility upon finding out your client is cheating on their partner. It is not ok to let this feeling affect the therapeutic relationship.
This kind of stuff is what supervision is made for. Learn about your blind spots. Learn what kind of clients really trigger an emotional response, and find a way to combat it. You aren’t the first person to have these sort of visceral reactions and you certainly won’t be the last. In fact, you would be surprised to hear just how many therapists struggle with countertransference on a daily basis. The ones who realise they are transferring their baggage onto the client and mention it to their supervisors can move past it and learn from the experience. Those that pretend there is no countertransference happening are likely to have a short career and burn out early.
The point of the story is simple; we are human beings who have human being emotions. Our pasts are inextricably linked to our present and we can’t be expected to turn that off. But we do need to keep it in check and we do need someone asking these important questions.
Clinical supervision is designed to help avoid many of the common pitfalls of early career therapists. Use the opportunity to not only become a better therapist, but to become more self-aware of your own biases and judgements. Trust us, it will make you a better therapist.
