TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IN PASTORAL COUNSELLING

Abstract. Assessing change during long-term psychotherapy can be a challenging and uncertain task. Psychological assessments can be a valuable tool and can offer a perspective from outside the therapy dyad, independent of the powerful and distorting influences of transference and countertransference. Subtle structural changes that may not yet have manifested behaviorally can also be assessed. However, it can be difficult to find a balance between a rigorous, systematic approach to data, while also allowing for the richness of the patient’s internal world to emerge. In this article, the authors discuss a primarily qualitative approach to the data and demonstrate the ways in which this kind of approach can deepen the understanding of the more subtle or complex changes a particular patient is undergoing while in treatment, as well as provide more detail about the nature of an individual’s internal world. The authors also outline several developmental frameworks that focus on the ways a patient constructs their reality and can guide the interpretation of qualitative data. The authors then analyze testing data from a patient in long-term psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy in order to demonstrate an approach to data analysis and to show an example of how change can unfold over long-term treatments.

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Thinking about transference and countertransference from cognitive perspectives

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e556572013-096 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Claire Cartwright

Keyword(s):

Transference And Countertransference ◽

Cognitive Perspectives

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Dancing with demons: working with vowed religious clergy who are also sex offenders

Attachment New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis ◽

10.33212/att.v13n1.2019.31 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 31-42

Author(s):

Sara Lynn Rependa ◽

Robert T. Muller

Keyword(s):

Sex Offenders ◽

Physical Disability ◽

Sexual Misconduct ◽

Religious Institution ◽

Therapeutic Modalities ◽

Transference And Countertransference ◽

Interpersonal Difficulties ◽

History Of ◽

Trauma Informed ◽

Therapeutic Considerations

This article discusses the case of a male vowed religious clergy, who was also in residential treatment for sexual misconduct and interpersonal difficulties. Importantly, this client also had a childhood history of sexual trauma. The case, difficult and complex in its own right, posed unique clinical challenges. The first author and therapist, a Catholic, feminist, woman often works with child trauma clients. Thus, the experiences of transference and countertransference were particularly important therapeutic considerations working with this client. Themes of power, sex, shame, guilt, and blame needed to be explored and processed in depth from the client’s and therapist’s perspectives both during session and supervision. Concurrent issues include personality disorders, physical disability, and psychosexual disorders. This client was referred by their religious institution and took part in a mandated fourteen to twenty-week residential programme. Therapeutic modalities include trauma-informed, attachment-oriented, and psychodynamic individual and grouporiented psychotherapy.

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Some Reflections on Reparation in Post-Apartheid South Africa, using a Couple Therapy Intervention as a Microcosm of South African Society

Couple and Family Psychoanalysis ◽

10.33212/cfp.v1n2.2011.222 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Andrea Hill ◽

Sylvia Poss

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Couple Therapy ◽

South African Society ◽

Depressive Position ◽

Central Hypothesis ◽

Transference And Countertransference ◽

Constructive Engagement ◽

The Impact ◽

Therapy Intervention

The paper addresses the question of reparation in post-apartheid South Africa. The central hypothesis of the paper is that in South Africa current traumas or losses, such as the 2008 xenophobic attacks, may activate a ‘shared unconscious phantasy’ of irreparable damage inflicted by apartheid on the collective psyche of the South African nation which could block constructive engagement and healing. A brief couple therapy intervention by a white therapist with a black couple is used as a ‘microcosm’ to explore this question. The impact of an extreme current loss, when earlier losses have been sustained, is explored. Additionally, the impact of racial difference on the transference and countertransference between the therapist and the couple is explored to illustrate factors complicating the productive grieving and working through of the depressive position towards reparation.

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