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PART TWO :-
COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
INTRODUCTION
This is Part 2 of a two-part series. These notes support a presentation and workshop
delivered by the Author to Spiritual Directors. They are intended to support a series of
experiential exercises and subsequent discussions. Part 2 needs to be read after Part 1.
Part 1 addressed the issues of defences and particularly transference. It outlined the
inevitability of transference in any meaningful relationship and looked at some aspects of
transference that could affect the helper: client relationship.
COUNTER - TRANSFERENCE
There are two main definitions of counter-transference. The first is helper activated
counter-transference and the second is helper reactivated counter-transference. The
second of these is more commonly accepted as the main working definition in helping
relationships. However, let us first ,briefly, outline ‘Helper Activated ‘ Transference.
HELPER ACTIVATED Just as clients can transfer emotional attitudes and feelings
from the past into the relationship, so too can the helper. These attitudes and feelings can
be counter-productive and belong to the helpers past. They can make it particularly
difficult to work with certain types of people. The following examples are taken from
Jacobs (1993)
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
Example 1 If you had a “bad” experience working with a person who became too
dependent upon you and had been suffering from extreme anxiety, you may find yourself
being very wary the next time you met a client who presented with the same symptoms. If
this was not recognised for what it is then the relationship may not work.
One way of discerning helper activated transference is to check out the ‘as if’ effect. You
could ask yourself, ‘are you treating or reacting to this new person as if they were
the same or similar to a relationship with a previous person you were guiding or
directing’ ?
Example 2 You may be a strong believer in people being independent, and this may
normally help you in your approach to spiritual direction and prayer guiding. However,
your views on this may be based on your own (unconscious) difficulties in co-operating
with others.
This ‘blind- spot’ concerns your ability to relate effectively in dependent and inter-
dependent relationships. Consequently, you will ‘work’ so as to avoid allowing people to
become in any way dependent upon you for any length of time. Yet sometimes this may
be important in early and challenging stages of the helper-client relationship.
Jacobs (1993) suggests that examples of such blind spots and counter-transference in
this negative sense could be multiplied, since every person has some areas of
understanding where she/he is less sensitive. Once again this leads back to the
importance of self-awareness, reflection and supervision.
• CONCORDANT COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
Example As a Director you may feel very irritated with a Directee ( e.g. Harry).
Now previously, Harry may have indicated that he could often find it difficult to make
relationships. This could help YOU, the Director, to reflect on how this could not only
reflect on how others( including yourself) react towards Harry but, more importantly, what
clues this could provide concerning Harry’s self-concept and self-esteem and how these
could be influencing his inter-personal relationships, both in the room with you and also
with others outside.
Example 1. You listen to a Directee (called Max) telling his story and you feel very sad,
sometimes to the point of shedding open tears. Yet Max shows no sign of sadness. This
can indicate Max’s inability to show or express some emotions and YOUR counter-
transference shows the real depth of feelings inside him.
Example l. A Directee called Leonora may evoke in you, the Director, feelings about
being extremely careful about what you can or could do or say that might ‘hurt’ Leonora.
i.e. a feeling that she must be treated with ‘kid gloves’ However, careful listening to the
Leonora reveals that ‘other people seem to shy away from me ‘This could indicate how
others may feel in her company and provide very useful insights for the helping
relationship.
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
Example 2. Leonora evokes parental feelings in you that lead to inclinations to protect
her. This may benefit by being explored by you and Leonora to find the meaning of this
transference / counter- transference in relation to her evoking parental/nurturing feelings
in others.
Additional Points Very often further clues to counter-transference can occur when You,
the Director, take ‘the case’ to supervision. You can be ‘sucked into’ thinking, feelings
and acting like the Directee with your supervisor,
e.g. your confusion, which mirrors the Directee’s confusion leads in turn to the supervisor
feeling very confused !
Or the Directee ‘dumps’ anger onto you who in turn ‘dump’ it onto your supervisor.
Finally, it is important to note that the resolution by YOU ,the Director , of the counter-
transference, either in personal reflection and/or in supervision, is one of the main
ingredients of casework which enables your Directees to resolve and relinquish their
transference.
Summary on Counter-Transference
Complementary counter-transference is where the Director can act ‘as if’ they were a
significant figure in the Directee’s life (past or present).
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
CONCLUSIONS
These notes are both based on and informed by the author’s practical experience of
counselling and training over the past 20 years. Much of the text is drawn from this
experience and from supervising helpers in a wide variety of settings. In addition the texts
outlined in the Bibliography have informed both notes on transference and counter-
transference.
NOTE:
An Addendum outlines Kolb’s Learning Cycle as this can be very useful in working
through issues of Transference and Counter-transference.
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
1. EXPERIENCING
What Happened?
Open to & engaging
With experiences
4. EXPERIMENTATION 2 REFLECTION
What can/do we do? What was it like ?
Trying things out – doing Investigating the
Things differently Experience(s)
3. CONCEPTUALISING
What does it mean?
Analysing & creating
Meaning from experience
Adapted from Morrison, T (1998) Casework Consolidation. Whitby & Birch, London
QPeter Creagh (2005)
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT
Counselling Theory and Practice:- Spiritual Direction
BIBLIOGRAPHY
© 2010 - Peter Creagh, Trainer, Supervisor and BACP Registered Counsellor UKRC
CBT