Thesis (MHSc--Health Science) -- AUT University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (vii, 60 leaves ; 30 cm.) in North Shore Campus Theses Collection (T 616.8914 WAR )

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (leaves 80-89).

This study seeks to qualitatively explore and understand counselling psychologists experience of subjective and objective countertransference within individual therapy and how this affects the counselling process. Historically the available literature suggests that the development of countertransference has been dominated through theoretical papers rather than empirical research. The complex nature of countertransference amongst practitioners can often cause controversy and debate when it is further broken down into subjective and objective factors. Not only does this impact the therapist, the client and the working alliance, but also the larger systems operating around these variables. This study provides a rich and detailed examination of subjective and objective countertransference through the methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Six counselling psychologists participated in a face-to-face semi-structured interview revealing countertransference in three parts; subjective, objective and contributory factors giving rise to seven superordinate themes. ‘Subjective’ Super-ordinate revealed ‘Professional, Personal and Reactors’. ‘Objective’ Super-ordinate found ‘Clients life outside the analysis’ and ‘Contributing Factors to Countertransference’ Super-ordinate encapsulated ‘Service restrictions, Therapeutic Relationship and Training’. These findings support several conceptual and theoretical published papers, however this empirical investigation adds to the literature through further informing clinical practice. It does so by separating parts of countertransference, digging deeper into those parts in an isolated way showing the affective processes, techniques, the interplay of evoked feelings to better manage countertransference in the moment of experiencing it and overall how this impacts the therapeutic relationship. Future research could consider exploring how counselling psychologists in the UK focus their attention on distinctive parts of subjective and objective countertransference (subjective countertransference thoughts, subjective countertransference feelings and subjective countertransference behaviours, as well as objective countertransference thoughts, feelings and behaviours separately), further research would also benefit from qualitative investigations of subjective and objective reactions when working with certain populations, for example, diagnosis/symptom-specific individuals, certain demographics and/or investigating couples or family systemic groups and whether this has any impact on the working alliance, therapeutic technique, intervention and outcome. Potential clinical implementation include counselling psychologists becoming better positioned to recognise when subjective and objective countertransference is occurring, what to do with it through the application of techniques and how to maintain a ‘good enough’ working alliance.

The aim of this study is to explicate the concepts transference and countertransference from the psychoanalytic, interpersonal and cybernetic perspectives. Commonalities and differences in definition are described. The notion that transference and countertransference provide the therapist with objective interpersonal information concerning the patient or client system is explored. It is pointed out that whilst, according to the tenets of second-order cybernetics, objective interpersonal information is not possible, transference and countertransference analysis, nevertheless, according to this viewpoint, provide the therapist with a double description. Such a description may influence the therapist's interpretation or understanding of the system at hand and be a component then also of the coconstructed, therapeutic reality of the therapist and patient or client. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Aims: The Second World War had a dramatic impact on the lives of those who lived through it (Davies, 1997) and its long-term impact continues for older people whose formative life experiences were affected by the process of Britain‟s wartime child evacuation scheme (Foster et al., 2003). Despite the place in the national psyche that remembrance of the World Wars holds there is very little literature or psychological research investigating the long-term effects of evacuation. There have been some previous quantitative studies using questionnaires to explore the effects of evacuation (e.g. Rusby, 2008, Foster et al., 2003, Waugh et al., 2007). There has also been one qualitative study exploring evacuees' experience of evacuation (Sturgeon-Clegg, Dpsych unpublished thesis). However, with an increasing number of former evacuees now becoming eligible for older people's services and being seen by mental health practitioners in specialist older people's services, this study is the first to ask psychologists who have worked with former evacuees about their experience of the therapy and whether they consider there is a long-term impact of evacuation. Method: Six psychologists took part in one-to-one, face-to-face interviews to investigate their experiences of working with evacuated clients whether they thought there had been a long-term impact of the evacuation on former evacuees. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith et al., 2009) methodology was used to analyse the data. Each interview was analysed individually before cross analysis. Results: The research produced three prominent themes related to the way psychologists understood the therapy with former evacuees. The first theme was the different voices around evacuation in the therapy room and how these different voices (the therapist's, the former evacuee's and dominate discourses) influenced participants' understanding of the evacuation experience. The second theme around "being genuine" explored psychologists' beliefs about their role and the role of therapy for former evacuees. The third theme was an awareness of death in the therapy with former evacuees and the impact this had on the therapeutic relationship. Implications: The main implications identified were: the need for psychologists working with former evacuees to have an understanding of evacuation and knowledge of the research on the long-term impact of evacuation on former evacuees. The importance of supporting psychologists working with former evacuees around the complex task of making sense of the relationship issues in the therapeutic relationship. Finally, participants in the study stressed the importance of developing a trusting, non-judging environment to encourage psychologists to process their response to the former evacuees they worked with.

Abstract Powerful and diverse countertransference reactions in psychotherapy group work with HIV positive children can be understood to indicate a site of mourning in the life of the group. Data from six interviews with five individuals conducting broadly psychodynamic group work with HIV positive children was analysed according to Thematic Content Analysis. The countertransference responses of the participants are understood as communications of the group unconscious, as well as expressions of the participants’ own unresolved unconscious difficulties. Working with HIV positive children confronts the participants with mortality and activates their earliest losses. A sense of strangeness and displacement, denial, idealisation, feelings of persecution, fantasies of rescue, rage, despair and hopelessness emerge in the countertransference and can be considered indicative of defences against mourning. These defences alternate with an engagement with the work of mourning and are represented in the countertransference as the relinquishment of omnipotence, awareness of fusion, containment, the recognition of the child’s resilience and uniqueness and the promotion of the child’s autonomy and expression. These findings may facilitate containment for therapists working with HIV positive children by offering an explanation of powerful and diverse countertransference responses as indicating a site of mourning, thereby promoting increased receptivity to unexpressed grief in therapy with these children.

Research regarding the experience of the psychotherapist in the therapeutic interaction is uncommon in scientific literature and rarer still in the literature of the U.S. When Freud recognized the therapist’s emotional experience in response to the client, he termed it countertransference and identified it as counterproductive to the analytic process. Later it was recognized as containing potentially useful information about the client. Despite a shift in academic concern away from the clinician’s experience, outcome studies have demonstrated the importance of the therapeutic relationship. If the therapist’s experience can help or hinder the relationship and, therefore, the process of therapy, it must continue to be explored. Some researchers have suggested that the field may be disproportionately populated by individuals who had excessive emotional demands placed on them as children (Miller, 1979/1990). Jurkovic (1997) proposed that, along with strengths endowed by this childhood responsibility, parentified therapists may find themselves more vulnerable to a sense of duty that they must help clients. Similarly, these therapists might feel compelled by their empathic concern to go above and beyond. The experience of a therapist in such a situation might be to “feel in too deep with a client” – the phenomenon of concern for this study. Ten practicing, doctoral level psychologists were asked to describe a specific experience in which they felt in too deep with a client. Selection analysis and situational descriptions were reviewed with each participant. Four core themes emerged. They revealed the participants’ experience of feeling in too deep as involving a variety of distressful thoughts and feelings. A specific cluster of feeling insecure, confused, or not in control was universal. The other three core themes were challenge in connection, altering personal style of therapy, and balancing the wants and needs of the different people in the therapy relationship. The unique experiences of participants relative to the core themes are discussed. Recent research on therapist-identified difficult situations provides a context for understanding these themes. Feeling in too deep is considered as a response to an ethical challenge.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-88).

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-75).

Assignment (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.