[[alternative]]A Study on a Psychotherapist’s Countertransference during the Process of Psychotherapy

[[abstract]]A Study on a Psychotherapist’s Countertransference during the Process of Psychotherapy Pey-Ling Shieh Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore the countertransference during an ongoing process of psychotherapy. The study is conducted by the phenomenology approach. As a ten-session psychotherapy progressed, the psychotherapist was interviewed within 30 hours after each session. The data were analyzed by a framework retrieved from the data itself. The contextual factors, natures and transformation of the countertransference were all described. The result yielded 22 units of countertransference experience. When compared with contextual factors, the psychotherapist’s countertransference to the specific client was found to have dual implications and to be more various than her original definition of and previous experiences of countertransference. The related factors of countertransference consisted of the fixed background of the therapist as well as the unique portion of the therapist-client interaction. The four domains of countertransference were classified as ‘feelings or cognitions toward the client’, ‘the role and position of the therapist and psychotherapy’, ’relationship and therapy maintenance’ and ‘distraction with associations’. Most units of countertransference fall into the category of ‘Feelings or cognitions toward the client’. The therapist had various feelings toward the client and some of those feeling led to cognitions about the client. ‘Role and position of the therapist and psychotherapy’ is the second most frequent category of the countertransference, which happened when the therapist wondered about ‘what is the role of a therapist’ and ’what is the position of psychotherapy’. The feeling of being used and of not being respected would contribute to the discontinuity of therapy. As for the countertransference of ’relationship and therapy maintenance’, therapist’s assessment of the relationship was directly related to the maintenance of therapy. On ‘distraction with associations’, the therapist experienced various association and identification. During the process of the psychotherapy, the familiarity of the therapist with the client increased. The global trend of understanding moved from stereotype-based and experience-based toward specific issues of the client. The focus of hypotheses-testing moved from ‘content consistency between client’s story and therapist’s experience’ toward ’internal consistency within client’s aspects of story’ or ’consistency between client’s story and hypotheses’. The transformation between sessions fluctuated and was recurrent. All four domains occurred at the initial stage and were intertwined with each other throughout the psychotherapy. process. Given the findings that the countertransference displayed various natures and was formed by multiple factors, the author suggests some directions about future training and research. Keywords: countertransference, process of psychotherapy, phenomenology