Undoing Aloneness: The Client's and Therapist's Parallel Experience of a Crisis

In a prior article, I began a discussion about undoing aloneness and what that means (see my article: Undoing Aloneness: Staying Socially Connected Even Though We Are Physically Disconnected).

In the prior article, I suggested ways that individuals could remain socially connected to loved ones, even though they are physically apart. I also discussed how therapists could maintain meaningful connections with clients through online therapy or phone therapy while they are out of their offices.

In this article, I'm focusing on the fact that therapists and clients are having parallel experiences of the COVID-19 crisis and how these parallel experiences can enhance therapists' ability to provide a safe therapeutic environment, which includes helping the client to feel that he or she isn't alone with the experience.

Undoing Aloneness: The Client's and Therapist's Parallel Experience of a Crisis

The Therapist's Clinical Judgement About Self Disclosure to Clients in Therapy During Parallel Experiences: Undoing Aloneness
In a prior article, I wrote about times when both the client and therapist are going through a similar crisis at the same time (see my article: Parallel Losses For the Client and the Therapist).

In that article, I discussed that therapists often find that a client comes to their office with a similar problem that the therapist might be experiencing at the same time.  I provided a fictional clinical vignette where a client, Lois, came to therapy because her mother was rapidly decompensating from Alzheimer's.

In this fictional example, Lois' therapist was able to provide both practical resources as well as clinical interventions to help Lois cope with her grief and fear about her mother's deteriorating condition.

Lois felt the calming and soothing holding environment that her therapist provided in her therapy sessions (see my article: The Creation of a Holding Environment in Therapy).  Even though Lois felt grief, she also felt her grief was being held and contained by her therapist and this was healing for Lois.

What Lois didn't know was that her therapist was also going through a similar experience with her own mother.  The therapist assessed whether it would be beneficial for Lois to know this and she made a clinical judgement call (to herself) that Lois needed to feel that her therapist was outside the world of Alzheimer's and nursing homes, so she opted not to tell Lois about her own situation.  She assessed that it wouldn't be helpful, so she didn't self disclose.

In another situation with a different client, the same therapist might assess that it would be beneficial for the client to know that the therapist was having a similar experience.  Self disclosure of this nature is, of course, done with much forethought and might even involve consultations with other colleagues.

The other consideration that must be kept in mind when the therapist and client are having parallel experiences is that, even though there might be similarities, there are also differences in the client's and therapist's situations.  This isn't a situation where there is "twinship" between the therapist and client.  Although similar, each of their situations will be unique and they will experience differences based on each of their particular situations and who they are as individuals.

The therapist has to make sure that any self disclosure, especially on this level, is for the benefit of the client and not for the benefit of the therapist.  This doesn't mean that the therapist might not derive some benefit or healing from it as a byproduct of the self disclosure, but the focus must be on what's best for the client.

Parallel Experiences During the COVID-19 Crisis and Undoing Aloneness For the Client
In the situation where a therapist is going through a similar personal situation to the client, the decision to self disclose or not, although not easy or done lightly, is easier to make, as compared to self disclosure in the COVID-19 crisis, because in the personal situation the client usually isn't aware of what's going on in the therapist's personal life.

But in the current COVID-19 pandemic, everyone is affected in one way or another, and most clients know this.  The therapist can't pretend that she's not affected by this crisis because the client already knows that everyone is affected, possibly in different ways and to a greater or lesser degree.

Similar to other situations where self disclosure is a clinical judgment call, during the COVID-19 crisis, the therapist must decide if, when and how much to self disclose on a case by case basis depending upon the needs of the client.

For some clients, any form of self disclosure or reminder that the therapist is affected is contraindicated because this reminder would be too overwhelming for the clients.  Even though, of course, they know, on some level, the therapist is affected, beyond knowing that the therapist is in good health and available to them, they don't want to be reminded that the therapist is experiencing the same crisis.

For instance, for some clients, who grew up with parents who were overwhelmed by one crisis after the next, these clients felt emotionally unprotected by their parents and had to fend for themselves as best as they could while feeling alone in their traumatic experiences.  They might even have had to function as parentified children to their parents where they took on the role of adults to take care of their parents--even though they were just children (see my article: The Roles of Children in Dysfunctional Families).

These clients often need to feel that the therapist can overcome any situation in order for the clients to feel safe in the therapy sessions.  This usually involves an idealized transference that the client develops for the therapist, which is an idealized view of the therapist (see my article: What is Transference in Psychotherapy?).

This is what undoes aloneness in the therapy session--the idea that, unlike the client's parent, the therapist is a competent adult who can handle any situation that comes up.

The resolution of the idealized transference will be determined by the client, and the therapist will take her cues from the client.  Over time, as the client's trauma begins to resolve and the client feels more empowered, s/he no longer needs to see the therapist as an idealized, powerful figure.

Converesely, other clients have a need to know that the therapist is also affected by a crisis that they're both experiencing, like the 9/11 World Trade Center attack or the current COVID-19 crisis.

For instance, during 9/11, many clients in New York City wanted to know if their therapist lost anyone at the World Trade Center.  Or, they wanted to know if their therapist experienced fear when the therapist heard about the attack.

Since both the therapist and client lived through 9/11, the therapist's willingness to discuss this as an experience that they each went through was often necessary and helpful. Obviously, the therapist needed to know each client very well to know what would be beneficial to help the client to feel less alone.

Another example is during the COVID-19 crisis a client might say that time feels distorted to her since the crisis began. In response, the therapist makes a clinical judgment as to whether it would be beneficial for the client to know that the therapist is having the same experience--with the same recognition, as mentioned before, that, although similar, each individual will have his or her own unique experience.

In addition, the therapist usually won't just end with self disclosure.  She would also talk about what the client can do to keep his or her perspective manageable.  So the therapist would provide the client with tools and techniques to accomplish this, so it's not just a shared experience but also an opportunity to learn how to manage emotions and maintain a perspective that's healthy for the client.

When the therapist self discloses, even if it's not a big self disclosure, it's always important for the therapist to metaprocess the experience with the client, which means asking the client what it was like to hear that the therapist was having a similar experience.  This helps to deepen the work and also helps the client to clarify the client's experience about the self disclosure.

In the event that the therapist made a clinical mistake in self disclosing, metaprocessing also provides an opportunity to repair that mistake (see my article: Ruptures and Repairs in Therapy).

Metaprocessing the experience of the therapist's self disclosure also helps the therapist to understand the client's experience.  This can lead to further explorations of the client's past, present and anticipated future.

The Therapist's Self Knowledge and Clinical Judgement About the Client
It's important for the therapist to know her own comfort level as well as knowing the client in order to make a clinical judgment call about self disclosure.

If the therapist knows that she tends to be reticent about self disclosure and that the client's question feels too personal for her, she needs to take this into consideration so that she's not uncomfortable with what she discloses.  At the same time, as mentioned earlier, she needs to know the individual client and what the client needs at any given time.  This is a balancing act.

At a particular point in time, a client might need to know something about the therapist's experience in order for the client not to feel alone in a situation.  However, over time, the client might have other thoughts and feelings about what s/he asked the therapist to self disclose.  All of this is grist for the mill and should be explored.

Undoing aloneness and self disclosure is an important and complicated topic, and one article isn't sufficient to address all the issues involved.  However, hopefully, this article gives you a sense of some important factors.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I've mentioned before, physical distancing doesn't mean that you can't connect in other ways to feel socially and emotionally connected.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist, who has the experience and skills to help you.

Rather than feeling alone and suffering on your own, you can get help from an experienced therapist.

Many therapists, like me, are offering online therapy while they're out of their office.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and AEDP therapist.  I also use EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) for couples.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

The Erotic Countertransference: The Therapist's Sexual Attraction to the Client

In an earlier article, Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: Falling "In Love" With Your Psychotherapist, I discussed clients' erotic feelings (also known as transference) for the therapist, the struggle that clients often have with these feelings, and how these feelings can be worked through with the therapist in a way that furthers the work in therapy.  As mentioned in the earlier article, a client's erotic feelings for his therapist is a common issue in therapy.  In this article, I'm focusing on the therapist's erotic feelings (also known as countertransference) for the client.

The Erotic Countertransference: The Therapist's Sexual Attraction to the Client

Psychotherapists who have been trained psychoanalytically are aware that they can develop erotic feelings for some clients. Knowing in advance that this will occur at some point and being trained on how to deal with it in an ethical way helps therapists to be prepared for these encounters, and it allows them to handle these issues in a way that isn't harmful to the client or their work together.

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that psychotherapists know that it would be a serious boundary violation to get sexually/romantically involved with the client whether that involvement occurred during their work together or even after the client terminated therapy.  Unfortunately, although the vast majority of therapists are ethical, there are some therapists who act unethically.  Fortunately, they are in the minority (see my article: Boundary Violations and Sexual Exploitation in Therapy).

A therapist who has in-depth psychoanalytic experience, knows how to attune to what's going on in her internal world, with the client, and in the intersubjective space between the client and therapist.

She is also able to  momentarily dip into her own subjective experience in a way that's useful for the therapy (see my article: Psychotherapy: A Unique Intersubjective Experience).

For instance, as an example having nothing to do with sexual attraction, while she is listening to the client, a particular song might pop into the therapist's head, and she would ask herself if this song has any relevance to the client or the therapy session. She would ask herself if this is a way for her unconscious mind to give her more information that she might not be picking up on consciously? (see my article: Making the Unconscious Conscious).

There can be many reasons why a therapist might feel sexually attracted to a client.  On the most basic level, some people, including clients in therapy, naturally exude a certain sexual magnetism.  Since part of the therapist's job is to be attuned to the client, she could be picking up on this magnetism.

Another common reason is that the client might be flirting with the therapist as part of a defense mechanism to divert the conversation from things that make him uncomfortable in the session. For an experienced therapist, this is usually easy to see and would need to be addressed by the therapist in a tactful way.

Another issue might be that the therapist might be at a point in her personal life where she is not romantically, sexually or emotionally fulfilled.  As a result, she might experience these unfulfilled needs in the therapy room with the client.  This is why it's so important for psychotherapists to be attuned to their own personal needs so that they don't make ethical mistakes.

The Erotic Countertransference:  The Therapist's Erotic Feelings For the Client
The following fictional vignette is based on many different clinical cases.  It illustrates how the therapist attunes to her own internal experience and how she uses this attunement to discover the meaning of her experience and how it relates to the work with the client.

Gina
Gina, who was an experienced psychotherapist, realized that she felt a sexual attraction for Jim, after their first session together.

As a seasoned psychotherapist whose original training was in psychoanalysis, Gina knew that it was common for both clients and therapists to have attractions for each other.

Not only had she learned about the erotic countertransference in her original analytic training and in her extensive supervision, she also experienced this occasionally with other male clients.  She and her colleagues also discussed this phenomenon in their peer supervision group.

Although she was clear that she wouldn't act on her attraction based on ethical and clinical reasons, there was something different about this experience as compared to other earlier experiences that concerned her.

So, rather than ignoring her sexual attraction, she paid attention to it, and after her second session with Jim, she thought about whether there was something familiar about him that might be triggering these feelings.

She also talked to her own psychotherapist about this sexual attraction in her next therapy session.  Since her therapist, Ruth, knew Gina well from having worked with her in her analysis for over 15 years, Ruth listened intently as Gina described the sexual feelings that came over her during the first two sessions with Jim.

As Ruth listened to Gina describe this attraction, she realized that Jim had similar characteristics to Gina's husband, who died several years before.  She knew that even though Gina had gone through a period of grief and mourning, she still missed her husband a lot.  She also knew that Gina had been unable to motivate herself to begin dating again even though several years had passed, which left Gina feeling lonely.

As they talked about the similarities, including appearance, between Jim and Gina's late husband, Gina felt a deep sadness come over her that she had not felt since Jim died unexpectedly.  Although she saw the striking similarities between Jim and her late husband, Gina also saw the differences, and as she began to differentiate the two men and her feelings towards them, she began to feel a little better.

These feelings for Jim were also a signal to Gina that she needed to take better care of herself and that her loneliness signaled that she might be ready to explore dating again--even though she had mixed feelings about it.

During her next several sessions with her therapist, Gina explored her ambivalence about dating.  Part of her hesitation was that she continued to feel loyal to her late husband, and she wasn't sure how she would feel dating someone new.

But she agreed with her therapist, Ruth, that she could take it one step at a time, and she was under no obligation to date anyone.  So, she thought of her foray into dating as a way to explore her own feelings and the next step in her mourning process, which included an acceptance that her husband would never come back.

This acceptance that her husband was gone forever brought a new and deeper wave of grief for Gina. She knew from her own training and clinical experience that this was a normal part of grief and mourning as time went on.  So, she continued to talk to her therapist to address her own emotional needs in her therapy and separate out these needs from her work with her client, Jim.

As Gina took care of herself emotionally by talking to her therapist about her emotions and to her friends, who were also colleagues, about her attraction to Jim, she noticed that her attraction began to diminish.  Her work with Jim continued without interruption to his clinical process in sessions, and the therapy was going well.

A few weeks after Gina started seeing Jim as a therapy client, she noticed that she no longer felt an attraction to him.  She could see the resemblance and similarities to her late husband, but she also saw Jim clearly for himself as an individual.

Four months later, Gina began dating again.  She met a man who was also a widower and who understood her mixed feelings about dating.  As she continued to see him, she realized that her feelings for her late husband would never change, and there was room in her heart for both her late husband and for the new man that she was beginning to really like (see my article: A New Relationship: Understanding the Loyalty Dilemma For Someone Whose Spouse Died).

As her emotional needs were met in her therapy, with friends and colleagues and with the new man that she was dating, Gina felt more emotionally fulfilled.  With time, her client, Jim no longer reminded her of her husband because, although there was a physical resemblance, she could now differentiate more clearly that they were two very different men.

She was glad that she took care of herself and used her resources in therapy and among friends and colleagues to deal with the countertransference issues related to her therapy with Jim.  She recognized that, in many ways, it was similar to what occurred occasionally with other clients in the past, but she also saw why her feelings were so heightened with the similarities to her husband.

Conclusion
Both clients and therapists can develop sexual attractions for each other.  It's usually related to transference for the client and countertransference for the therapist.

Therapists have an ethical responsibility to be aware of their feelings and, for the sake of the client and the integrity of the therapy, not to act on their feelings.

Occasionally it happens that a therapist, who sought help in her own therapy, in supervision and among colleagues, is still unable to handle the countertransference, she has a ethical responsibility to refer the client to another therapist rather than act on her feelings or continue to be in conflict about them.

It's of utmost importance that therapists have a strong sense of self awareness and engage in self care so that they don't compromise a client's therapy.  As in the fictional scenario above, this means that the therapist must have the necessary skills and training to self reflect on her own internal process and do what she needs to do to take care of herself.

Although it was not discussed in this article, there are times when both the therapist and the client have a sexual attraction for each other.  In those cases, even if the client behaves in a seductive way, it's the therapist's responsibility not to cross a boundary with a client.  She must analyze her own feelings as well as the clients to understand the root of the issue for each of them and then proceed in an ethical manner to do what's best for the client while taking care of herself.

Getting Help in Therapy
Most well-trained psychotherapists are aware that they will occasionally feel an attraction for a client.      This is a common experience.  Most of them will also know that this probably has less to do with the client than it does with whatever is or isn't going on in their life.

Although sexual boundary violations do occur from time to time, most therapists take their Code of Ethics, which states that therapists cannot be in a dual relationship with a client, seriously.  They know it would be devastating to the client, their work together and it would also jeopardize their professional license if they crossed this ethical boundary.

If you're already in therapy and some of the issues in this article resonate with you, you would probably benefit from discussing them with your therapist or, if you're not comfortable with that, seeking a consultation with a different therapist to discuss what's going on in your therapy.  Most of the time these issues can be worked out, but if you tried and they can't be resolved, you can also seek help from another licensed therapist.

We all need help at some point in our lives.  If you're not in therapy and you're struggling with unresolved issues that are creating obstacles in your life, you deserve to get help from an experience licensed mental health professional.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Emotionally Focused therapist, also known as EFT (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Psychotherapy as a Co-Created Process Between the Psychotherapist and the Client - Part 2

In my prior article, I began a discussion about psychotherapy as a co-created process between the psychotherapist and the client.  I'm continuing this discussion to delve deeper into this topic, specifically about how the client and psychotherapist co-create the therapeutic relationship.

Psychotherapy as a Co-Created Process Between the Client and the Psychotherapist 

How the Client and Psychotherapist Co-Create the Their Therapeutic Relationship
As I mentioned in my prior article, the concept that psychotherapy is a co-created process is part of contemporary psychotherapy and it's different from how psychotherapy was practiced in the past.

There is now a recognition that each client-psychotherapist relationship is unique--just as any other type of relationship between two people is unique.

It's the psychotherapist's responsibility to provide the client with psychoeducation about psychotherapy and how she works in therapy.

If the psychotherapist uses Integrative Psychotherapy, as I do, she will explain the different therapy modalities that she uses, which can be used individually or in combination.

For instance, if the psychotherapist is trained as a contemporary psychoanalyst and she also does EMDR Therapy, she can explain how these two modalities can be used in combination (see my article: Contemporary Psychoanalysis and EMDR Therapy: A Powerful Combination to Overcome Trauma).

Most likely, she will also explain that if one modality doesn't work for this particular client, she can switch to another modality.

The relationship between the client and the therapist is also known as the therapeutic alliance.  At the most basic level, the therapeutic alliance is based on the therapist being able to provide a safe, trusting relationship, also called the "holding environment"  (see my article: The Creation of the Holding Environment in Psychotherapy).

Contemporary psychotherapy is a two-person therapy.  It's an intersubjective experience between the client and the therapist where the therapist is attuned to the client (see my article: The Psychotherapy Session: A Unique Intersubjective Experience).

Even though the psychotherapist is the one with the expertise in doing psychotherapy, most  psychotherapists also rely on feedback from the client about what's working and what's not working in therapy for the client (see my article: How to Talk to Your Psychotherapist About Something That's Bothering You in Therapy).

Ideally, the therapist will ask at various points in therapy and encourage the client to give feedback at other times but, even if your therapist doesn't ask you for feedback, it's important to give feedback to her.

Why is it important?  It's important for the therapeutic process and also for maintaining a good relationship with your psychotherapist that you provide her with feedback as to how the therapy is going (see my article:  Why Being Honest With Your Psychotherapist is the Best Policy).

Many people have problems giving feedback to their therapists because they were discouraged or even punished for giving feedback to their parents when they were children, so even as adults, they still carry that fear.

Other people don't feel entitled to give feedback.  They think of it as "complaining" and they don't want to "offend" their psychotherapist.

So, instead of giving feedback, they might pretend that everything is going well in therapy, and the end result is that the client doesn't get what she needs in therapy, the therapy is an "as if" therapy and nothing changes.

Many psychotherapists recognize when clients are hold back from talking about misgivings in therapy or that a certain aspect of therapy isn't working for them, so they will try to elicit feedback.

But there are times when the therapist doesn't see it, and the therapy becomes ineffective or, rather than express himself, the client leaves therapy prematurely (see my article: When Clients Leave Psychotherapy Prematurely).

The client's trust and sense of safety develop over time.  For some clients, it happens relatively quickly and for others it can take a while, especially if they've had early experiences where they couldn't trust their parents or other close family members.

The therapeutic alliance is also based on there being a good match between the client and the therapist.

Initially, you might not know if a particular therapist is a good match for you.  You might need a few therapy sessions to be able to discern if the two of you are a good match.  This doesn't mean that the therapist isn't skilled or that you're being "resistant."  It might just mean that, like any two people, the two of you aren't a good fit.

Some psychotherapists are better trained, educated and more skilled than others as well as more empathetic than others.

An empathic failure can result from a psychotherapist's oversight, but in a good therapeutic relationship, once the client provides feedback about an empathic failure or other rupture in the therapy, there is an opportunity for a repair (see my article: (see my articles:  Why is Empathy Important in Psychotherapy?, What is Empathic Failure in Psychotherapy? and Ruptures and Repairs in Psychotherapy).

But if there are consistent empathic failures on the therapist's part, you would be wise to tell the therapist that you don't think the therapy is working for you and then seek out another therapist.

Even when you think the therapy isn't working for you, it's still important to provide the therapist with feedback rather than just leaving abruptly or disappearing from therapy.

Why?  It's not for the therapist (although it can be beneficial).  It's for your benefit to be able to assert yourself and speak up for what you need, especially if this is challenging for you (see my article: Ask For What You Need in Therapy).

So, if the therapy is going relatively well because you have a good therapeutic alliance with the therapist and you're starting to make changes in your life, does this mean that there will be all smooth sailing ahead?

Not necessarily.  There is the issue of transference, which is unconscious and which can change over time (see my articles:  What is Transference in Psychotherapy?,  Psychotherapy and the Positive Transference,  What is the Negative Transference? and Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: Falling "In Love" With Your Psychotherapist).

Having a negative transference at a certain point in therapy isn't necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, it can turn out to be beneficial.  Often, a negative transference is based on earlier relationships with parents where you weren't able to work out these issues with your parents.

But in a good therapy, you have a unique opportunity to work out these issues with a therapist who is receptive to working on issues in therapy that might have triggered earlier unresolved problems.  This can be healing to you and help you to resolve those earlier issues.

Getting Help in Therapy
It takes courage to admit that you have a problem and to ask for help (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Many people start therapy with a sense of ambivalence, especially if they've never been in therapy before (see my article: Starting Psychotherapy: It's Not Unusual to Feel Anxious or Ambivalent).

Getting help in therapy starts with calling for a consultation.

The purpose of the consultation is to talk about your problem in a general way and to ask the therapist questions about her experience, training, history of helping clients with similar problems, and how she works (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Working through your problems in therapy can lead to your living a more fulfilling and meaningful life without the "baggage" from your history.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What is the Negative Transference in Psychotherapy?

In prior articles, I've discussed the positive transference, the erotic transference and the parental transference.  

Today I'm focusing on the negative transference and how it plays out in therapy (see my article: What is Transference in Psychotherapy?).  

What is the Negative Transference in Psychotherapy?

What is the Negative Transference in Psychotherapy?
The most basic explanation for the negative transference, which was first identified by Sigmund Freud when he was developing psychoanalysis, is that it is a term used in psychotherapy for the negative feelings that a client projects onto his therapist.

Just like the other forms of transference, the negative transference is usually an unconscious projection of negative feelings that the client "transfers" from early childhood relationships onto the psychotherapist (see my article: Discovering the Unconscious Emotions At the Root of Your Current Problems).

Although the client might be aware that he has similar hostile feelings towards his therapist as he did for a parent, he might not be aware that he is projecting these feelings onto the therapist.

Also, as I mentioned in earlier articles, transference in general is a normal part of relationships outside of therapy.  It's not just a phenomenon that occurs in therapy.

For instance, spouses can develop negative transferential feelings for each other, especially when one or both of them says something that triggers an emotional response related to a hostile relationship with a parent.

Another example is of an employee who has a negative transference for a boss that's based on a hostile relationship with a parent.

And so on.

Working Through the Negative Transference in Psychotherapy
The negative transference can show up in all kinds of ways in psychotherapy.  It can be a hostile projection that a client feels towards the therapist that is short lived or it can go on for a long time.

The negative transference is a dynamic that clients and their psychotherapist can work through in therapy.

As I mentioned in a prior article, it's important to distinguish transferential feelings from more objective feelings.

In other words, if a client has negative feelings towards his psychotherapist, it's not always about transference.  It's possible that the psychotherapist said or did something that caused the client to develop these negative feelings that is unrelated to transference and, if so, the therapist needs to own up to this and apologize (see my article: How to Talk to Your Psychotherapist About Something That's Bothering You in Your Therapy).

But, assuming that the problem is related to a negative transference, the client and therapist can often work through the hostile projections that the client places on the therapist--although it's not always easy and the working through will depend upon the particular client-therapist relationship.

Let's take a look at a fictional vignette, which is representative of a common situation in therapy where the client starts out with a positive transference for his psychotherapist, develops a negative transference and, ultimately, the therapist and client work through the negative transference.

Fictional Vignette:  Working Through the Negative Transference in Psychotherapy

Ed
Ed began psychotherapy because he was upset about a recent breakup with his girlfriend.

He tried in vain to reconcile with his former girlfriend of four years, but she refused to reconcile.  This left Ed feeling confused and very sad, especially since he didn't understand why his girlfriend broke up with him.

Initially, Ed felt comfortable with his therapist.  He found her to be empathetic and emotionally supportive.  He told his therapist that he was surprised that he actually looked forward to his psychotherapy session each week because he felt understood and cared about.

At that point, Ed had a positive transference for his psychotherapist and the sessions were going well.

When Ed thought about why he liked his therapist so much, he realized that she reminded him of his aunt, who used to take care of him after school until his mother came home from work.  He loved his aunt because, not only was she nurturing, she was also fun to be around.  He preferred being with his aunt to being with his mother, whom he considered cold and highly critical.

One day, during a psychotherapy session, while Ed and his therapist were talking about his confusion as to why his girlfriend left him and why she refused to reconcile, his therapist attempted to explore with Ed if he could think of anything that he might have said or done that might have contributed to the problem.

What is the Negative Transference in Psychotherapy?

Immediately after his psychotherapist asked Ed this question, she could see a shift in Ed.  His face turned white and he looked stricken.  His body became rigid and he sat very straight up in his chair as if he had just been attacked by the therapist (see my article: Shifting Self States).

When she asked the question, the therapist was trying to help Ed to explore his own thoughts and feelings about what might have happened between him and his girlfriend.  But she could see from Ed's intense reaction that he felt stung, so she attempted to address this with Ed, but he was too angry to listen to her.

Before the psychotherapist could talk to Ed about his reaction and explain the reason for her question, he told her that he was shocked that she would ask him such a question, "This is what my mother used to do!  She blamed me for everything!  Now, you're doing it. I thought you were on my side."

During the next couple of weeks when Ed came to therapy, he was either outwardly angry or quietly sullen.  It was obvious to the therapist that Ed was now experiencing a negative transference and he was projecting his angry feelings about his mother onto her.  She realized that she asked Ed this question too soon because he wasn't ready to deal with it.

Ed ignored his therapist's initial attempts to address his hostile feelings for her and each week he wavered as to whether he would continue in the therapy with her or not.  He said he was considering trying to find another therapist who would be more empathetic towards him and who would not criticize him.

After a few weeks, Ed calmed down somewhat and he was able to have a discussion about their therapeutic relationship.  Although he acknowledged that, at first, he felt comfortable with her, now he wasn't sure if he trusted her or not.

He felt that by asking him whether he knew of anything that he might have said or done that could  have contributed to the end of the relationship, his therapist was assuming that the breakup was all his fault.  And since he lived with his mother's withering criticism during his childhood, he found it especially hurtful that his therapist would make this "accusation" in therapy, a place where he should feel safe.

By the third week, Ed was more subdued.  He told his therapist that he received an email from his ex, who finally responded to him and gave him the reasons why she ended the relationship.  She told him that, before now, she wasn't ready to address his questions about the breakup, especially since she had been telling him about these problems throughout their relationship.

Ed went on to tell his psychotherapist that his ex gave him many examples of his lack of consideration for her.  When he read her email, he remembered that she had made these same complaints many times before, but he had never taken her complaints seriously.  Now, he realized that he took his ex and their former relationship for granted when they were together, and he also realized that he was at fault.

The email hit him like "a ton of bricks." But after reading it, he knew that he wanted to change this aspect of himself that tended to disregard the other person's feelings when he was in a relationship.  He recognized that he had this problem in his prior relationships, and he didn't want to continue to perpetuate this dynamic in a future relationship.

Then, Ed told his therapist that he now understood why she was attempting to help him explore what he might have done that contributed to the relationship, and he realized that she wasn't criticizing him.  He realized that, in fact, his therapist was trying to help him.

After that, Ed and his therapist were able to talk about the dynamic in his former relationship, including his part in the demise of the relationship.

He was also able to talk about his traumatic relationship with his mother and how he feared her criticism when he was a child.  He discussed how he was never able to talk to his mother about her hostility because she would never acknowledge it, and she always blamed him.  As a result, there was no way to reconcile things between them whenever she berated him.

After he and his therapist talked about what happened between them, Ed realized that he got emotionally triggered when he heard his therapist's question (see my article: Coping With a History of Trauma: Becoming Aware of Emotional Triggers).

With his therapist's help, Ed was able to distinguish his relationship with his mother from his relationship with her.  He could see that they were too very different relationships (see my article: Working Through Emotional Trauma: Learning to Separate "Then" From "Now").

He could see that, whereas he and his mother couldn't repair their relationship whenever she berated him, he and his therapist could work through difficulties between them (see my article: Ruptures and Repairs in Therapy).

Since his mother never admitted to a mistake and his father was mostly absent, Ed never experienced this kind of dyadic repair as a child, and he was moved and grateful to experience this in therapy.

These discussions allowed Ed and his psychotherapist to work through the negative transference.

Over time, Ed and his therapist had other transferential ups and downs in therapy, but they were able to work through these incidents.

His therapist also spoke to Ed about transference and explained transference reactions were a common experience in therapy as well as in other areas of people's lives (see my article: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation in Therapy).

Conclusion
Transference is ubiquitous.  It's not just a phenomenon that occurs in psychotherapy.

When a negative transference develops in psychotherapy, the value of working through the transference, aside from preserving the therapeutic relationship, is that the client can explore his negative projections, own them, and form a more objective relationship with his psychotherapist.

Working through the negative transference can be challenging for both the client and the psychotherapist.

When he is experiencing the negative transference, the client can be in a state of high agitation and might not be able to process his feelings or hear what the therapist has to say.

But as the negative transference gets worked through in therapy, the client gets to experience, possibly for the first time, that these kinds of issues can be worked out.  Like "Ed" in the fictional vignette, it is often a transformative experience.

For the therapist, who is obviously human and doesn't want to be disliked, it can be difficult to feel the client's intense dislike or hatred.  But a skilled psychotherapist also knows that she isn't there to be "liked," she's there to be helpful to the client, which can mean tolerating the client's hostility until they can work out these issues.

Getting Help in Therapy
It takes courage to ask for help (see my article: Tips on Overcoming Your Fear of Asking For Help).

The advantage of going to therapy, as opposed to relying solely on family and friends, is that the psychotherapist is a trained, objective person who will give you her undivided attention at a time and in a place that is devoted to you each week (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Many people, who could benefit from psychotherapy, don't come to therapy because they fear being emotionally vulnerable.

This is why it's so important to have an initial consultation to get a sense of the psychotherapist and if you and she would be a good match (see my article How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

If you've been struggling with a problem for a while and you've been unable to resolve it on your own, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.

Rather than continuing to struggle on your own, you could work through your problems in therapy and then move on to live a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist. 

I use an integrative approach in therapy to develop the treatment plan that works for each individual client (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrated Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples in an interactive and collaborative way.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What is Transference in Psychotherapy?

I have discussed transference in prior articles (see my articles: Psychotherapy and the Positive Transference and Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference).  I wanted to discuss transference in more detail in this article so that clients who are in therapy or thinking about going to therapy will have a better understanding of this concept.

What is Transference in Psychotherapy?

The concept of transference was originally developed by Sigmund Freud when he was developing psychoanalysis.  He described various forms of transference in psychotherapy, including the positive transference, negative transference, erotic transference, parental transference and so on.

Here is a simple explanation of transference for psychotherapy clients who might be curious:  Typically, transference occurs when the client unconsciously "transfers" feelings that s/he had during childhood from her primary caregiver to the current psychotherapist.

Since this phenomenon is unconscious on the client's part, s/he usually isn't aware that these old feelings are being superimposed on the relationship with the psychotherapist.

If the transference is positive, it usually means that the client and psychotherapist have a good therapeutic relationship and, in most cases, the therapy is going well.

If the transference is negative, it means that there is some conflict between the client and the psychotherapist or some obstacle in the therapeutic work, and the client has negative feelings about the therapist.

During the course of therapy, the client's transference can switch back and forth between positive and negative or other forms of transference.

Many clients aren't aware of the term "transference" because the term is a form of psychotherapy jargon, and most therapist would find a more accessible way of talking about the therapeutic relationship with the client without resorting to jargon.

But clients who are interested in psychotherapy and possibly thinking about becoming a psychotherapist will often read this term and wonder what it means.

Transference is not a phenomenon that is exclusive to psychotherapy.  We all experience various forms of transference all the time in our personal and work relationships.

For instance, if you resented your authoritative father as a child, you might unconsciously "transfer" the feelings of resentment from your father to your boss at work and develop a negative transference for your boss--regardless of whether your boss is authoritative or not.

This doesn't mean that you still don't resent your authoritative father.  It just means that your boss is a person who is in authority in your life, and regardless of whether your boss has an authoritative personality or not, on an unconscious level, you have similar feelings towards your boss (and possibly other authority figures) as you did (or do) towards your father (see the vignette in my article: Contemporary Psychotherapy: Redefining the Traditional View of "Resistance" in Therapy).

Similarly, if your boss unconsciously reminds you of your grandfather, who was kind to you, you might develop a positive transference for your boss without even realizing how your feelings for your boss are connected to your grandfather.

Many psychotherapy clients "fall in love" with their psychotherapists.  I put "fall in love" in quotes because they're not actually in love with the therapist.

Most of the time, their feelings are based on a fantasy of what it might be like to have a personal relationship with the therapist.

This fantasy might have nothing to do with what it might actually be like to have a personal relationship with the psychotherapist (see my article: Why Your Psychotherapist Can't Be Your Friend).

Clients who experience an erotic transference for their therapist often worry and feel ashamed of their feelings, but this is a common experience in therapy.  Usually, the erotic transference dissipates over time as the client gets a better sense of the therapist as a ordinary person, the client develops more objective feelings for the therapist, and the client finds other attainable love interests in the "real world."

Although transference is an important concept in psychotherapy, not all feelings towards your therapist are about transference and it's important to be aware of this.

For instance, if your psychotherapist has said or done something in therapy that bothers you, your feelings shouldn't be dismissed by the therapist as being only about transference.

The real issue between you and the therapist needs to be addressed (see my article: How to Talk to Your Psychotherapist About Something That's Bothering You in Psychotherapy).

In future articles, I'll discuss other forms of transference.

Conclusion
Everyone experiences transference in all kinds of relationships--not just their relationship with their psychotherapist.

Transference usually happens on an unconscious level.

If you're in therapy and you're uncomfortable with your transferential feelings for your psychotherapist, you can talk to your therapist about it.

Psychotherapists are usually open to talking about transference, and you'll probably feel better to get these feelings out in the open.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're feeling stuck in your life or you're unable to overcome a problem on your own, you could benefit from attending psychotherapy (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Rather than suffering on your own, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Whether you need emotional support or if you need help overcoming psychological trauma, a skilled psychotherapist can help you overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from living a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist and I use Integrative Psychotherapy (see my article:  The Therapeutic Benefits of Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Mutual Enactments Between the Client and the Psychotherapist in Psychotherapy

In a prior article, Why Your Psychotherapist Can't Be Your Friend, I began a discussion about the roles of the psychotherapist and client in therapy, which included the concept of mutual enactments in therapy.  In this article, I will delve deeper into the concept of mutual enactments with a clinical vignette that illustrates these concepts.

Mutual Enactments Between the Client and the Psychotherapist

Before I go any further, I think it would be helpful to have a definition of "enactments" in the therapy setting.

Although there are various definitions for enactments, depending upon whether psychotherapists are Classical or contemporary Relational psychotherapists, I prefer the definition given by Fonya Lord Helm in a chapter, "Enactments Leading to Insight for Patient, Therapist and Supervisor" in Enactment: Toward a New Approach to the Therapeutic Relationship edited by Steven J. Ellman and Michael Moskowitz, which is:

"An enactment is any action occurring during the psychotherapy or psychoanalysis that repeats an earlier similar experience or fantasy and communicates feeling...by nonverbal means in a way that will draw the therapist or analyst into a nonverbal communication" (p. 157).

In the past, the term "acting out" was used instead of "enactments," and this usually referred to the client's impulsive and improper behavior.  Although the emphasis was on the client's acting out behavior, it's also generally understood that psychotherapists can act out as well.

The term "acting out" is used less these days because of its pejorative connotation and also because the behavior is viewed from the psychotherapist's perspective in the type of hierarchical therapy where the therapist is seen as being "neutral" and "abstinent" as opposed to a more contemporary relational view of mutuality between therapist and client.

The contemporary view of enactments is that they are generally unconscious on the part of both the psychotherapist and the client.

In the past, enactments were seen solely as "mistakes" in therapy.  Now enactments are viewed most by therapists as an unavoidable part of therapy.

Whereas the ideal is to strive for no (or few) enactments, from a practical and therapeutic perspective, the reality is that there will be enactments, whether they are big or small and, once they occur, the therapist can discuss these enactments to further the work.

Although the focus in this article is on enactments between psychotherapists and clients, it's important to understand that enactments occur in everyday relationships, including romantic relationships, familial relationships, friendships and work relationships.

At this point, in addition to the vignette I provided in the last article, the following vignette will shed light on this dynamic between therapists and clients.

Fictional Vignette:  Mutual Enactments Between the Client and the Psychotherapist in Psychotherapy:

Liz
Liz, who was in her mid-30s, started therapy because she had longstanding problems in romantic relationships.

Although she had no problems meeting men, her problems began once the relationship became serious because she had difficulty trusting men in intimate relationships.

Her lack of trust in these relationships would manifest in her insecurity and jealousy with Liz imagining that her boyfriend at the time was cheating on her--even when she had no objective reason to think this.

When Liz began to feel jealous and insecure, she had difficulty separating her feelings from facts (see my articles:  Overcoming the Insecurity and Jealousy That's Ruining Your Relationship and Discovering That Your Feelings Aren't Facts).

Instead of observing and exploring her feelings with her boyfriend, she behaved as if her feelings were true and accused him of cheating.  She was so caught up in her emotions that she had no awareness that she was projecting her feelings onto the situation.  As far as she was concerned, when she felt her boyfriend was cheating, it must be true.

The pattern was that she would feel overwhelmed with jealousy and insecurity, accuse her boyfriend of cheating, he would be genuinely shocked and then he would try to defend himself against these accusations.

But no amount of denial or proof would dissuade Liz of her convictions that her boyfriend was unfaithful to her.

The more her boyfriend denied cheating and showed her proof, for instance, that he was with male friends at a basketball game, the more convinced Liz was that her boyfriend was lying.  And if her boyfriend refused to respond to her accusations, she also saw that as proof that he was guilty of infidelity.  So, there was no way to resolve this problem.

This is an example of an enactment in an intimate relationship.  It has many of the same qualities as enactments in therapy, which I'll discuss later.

As would be expected, this dynamic tended to erode the positive aspects of the relationship and would soon doom the relationship.  Her then-boyfriend would accuse her of being jealous and controlling, and she was convinced that he was trying to turn the tables on her when he was really the guilty one.

After each relationship was over, Liz had some insight into the fact that her accusations were irrational and she would have regrets.  But, by that time, the situation had gotten so bad that her ex-boyfriend no longer wanted to hear from her--let alone resume the relationship.

Every time Liz began to a new relationship, she vowed to herself that she wouldn't ruin it by making baseless accusations of infidelity.  But when she became jealous and insecure, the feelings were so powerful that she would lose all perspective.

These unconscious feelings overpowered her.   Once these feelings dominated her, she believed them to be true until she was out of the relationship.

When she discussed these dynamics with her therapist, she expressed sincere regret for the heartache that she caused in her boyfriends and herself and a strong desire to stop this behavior.

Mutual Enactments Between the Client and Psychotherapist

Her therapist sensed that Liz's regret as well as her sorrow for destroying her relationships. Her therapist was aware that, since this dynamic was unconscious at the time when it occurred, Liz was unable to control it.  She was also aware that Liz lacked the objectivity as well as the verbal skills to address this in her relationship when she was overwhelmed by these feelings.

Her therapist recognized Liz's behavior in her relationships as being enactments.  She also knew that there would probably be enactments in the therapy, and she would need to try to be aware of as they occurred.

Since Liz had been in therapy before, Liz knew that her family history, which was chaotic and dysfunctional, contributed to her inability to sustain romantic relationships.  But knowing this did nothing for her in terms of her enactments in her relationships (see my article: Intellectual Insight Isn't Enough to Change Problems).

From Liz's perspective, her prior experiences with therapy were disappointing.  The pattern was that the therapy would go well at the beginning, and then Liz would realize that she didn't trust the therapist.

Since she was unable to communicate her feelings of mistrust directly to her prior therapists in the past, she aborted therapy without discussing it, and she didn't respond to their outreach calls or letters (see my article: When a Client Leaves Therapy Prematurely).  These abrupt endings to her therapy were also enactments on her part.

After hearing about her previous history in therapy, Liz's therapist was aware that Liz might end this therapy abruptly too if she developed negative feelings towards her (also known as the negative transference).

Her therapist also wondered how much the prior therapists contributed to these enactments because of their own frustration and negative feelings about these dynamics.  She was aware that she would need to be vigilant about her own feelings about their therapy (known as countertransference) to minimize her own unconscious contribution to mutual enactments.

During the first few months, therapy went well.  Liz showed up on time for all her therapy appointments, she was compliant with paying her fee on time, she reflected on their sessions between sessions, and she discussed her reflections at subsequent sessions.

Her therapist enjoyed working with Liz and looked forward to their sessions.  Liz was intelligent and articulate about the issues they discussed, and she even kept a journal between sessions to write down her thoughts (see my articles: The Benefits of Journal Writing Between Therapy Sessions and Journal Writing Helps Relieve Stress and Anxiety).

But a month before her therapist was due to go on vacation for two weeks and she mentioned that she would be away, her therapist noticed an abrupt change in Liz's demeanor.  Whereas normally, Liz was relaxed in session, immediately after her therapist told her about the break, Liz looked tense and suspicious.

Her therapist mentioned her vacation in a month's time at the beginning of the session because she wanted to allow time for them to discuss any feelings that Liz might have about the break.

Her therapist could see from the abrupt change in Liz's demeanor that Liz had a negative reaction to the upcoming break, but Liz refused to talk about it when her therapist asked her about it.

From her silence and refusal to talk, her therapist was aware that she was witnessing an enactment on Liz's part, and she hoped not to get caught in a mutual enactment.

Based on Liz's history of relational problems, her therapist knew that Liz's reaction was probably unconscious on her part and Liz lacked the necessary insight and communication skills to talk about her feelings rather than enacting them in her sullen, uncommunicative behavior.  She knew it would be useless to explain this to Liz at the moment because Liz wasn't receptive to hearing an explanation.

Her therapist was aware that she was on the horns of a dilemma:  Liz was unconsciously trying to control her in the session by not talking and trying to make her feel guilty about leaving Liz (similar to how Liz tried to control her relationships with her former boyfriends).

Her therapist was also aware that, similar to Liz's dynamics with her former boyfriends, if the therapist attempted to encourage Liz to discuss her feelings, Liz would resent her and view her with increased suspicions.  But if she remained silent, Liz would feel that was too emotionally depriving and interpret that to mean that her therapist didn't care.

Ether way, her therapist would be engaging in a mutual enactment so she would have to decide quickly in the moment which course of action would be least disruptive to the therapy and might result in furthering the work.

Her therapist decided to share her dilemma with Liz, "I can see that you have feelings about the upcoming break in our therapy sessions.  I'd like us to be able to talk about that, but just now when I encouraged you to talk, you've remained silent.  I feel myself on the horns of dilemma.  Just like the dynamics in your romantic relationships, on the one hand, if I encourage you to talk, you see that as further proof that I'm doing something wrong and I don't care about you. But if I remain silent, you see that as proof that your feelings aren't important to me and I don't care about you.  Either way, you think I don't care.  Can you see my dilemma?"

Listening to her therapist express her dilemma softened Liz a bit.  She seemed to relax a little, and she nodded her head as if she understood what her therapist meant.

In the past, her therapist had spoken to Liz about what happened to her when she became jealous of her boyfriends as her being caught in a "vortex" of overwhelming emotions.

This idea of being stuck in a vortex came to Liz's mind now, and she told her therapist that she wasn't sure what she was feeling, but she felt as if her emotions were overpowering her.

Recognizing her new ability to even verbalize that she was overwhelmed and caught up by powerful emotions in the here and now represented significant progress for Liz.

Her therapist asked Liz to describe the vortex to her and she said she hoped to be able to help Liz to step out of the vortex.

Liz described feeling like she was in a whirlwind of powerful emotions that threatened to overtake her.  She said it was like being in the middle of a storm and she described those feelings.

Her therapist pointed out that Liz's ability to describe this whirlwind meant that Liz wasn't completely caught up in it--part of her was somewhat objective and could step out of the storm, even if it was momentarily, to observe herself in the storm.

Liz gave a barely perceptible nod to indicate that she agreed that she sensed a shift in her--something she had never experienced in the past.  She was able to say that, she wasn't sure why, but she felt unhappy about her therapist's announcement that they would be taking a break for two weeks when her therapist went on vacation.

Although Liz was unhappy about the upcoming break, she was pleased that she had achieved some objectivity about herself and her feelings by being able to observe herself, and she attributed this to their work together so far and her therapist telling her about the dilemma.

In the sessions that followed, Liz and her therapist continued to deal with Liz's unhappiness about the upcoming break and how abandoned she would feel (see my article: Coping With Trauma: Becoming Aware of Your Emotional Triggers and Old Abandonment Issues Can Get Triggered When Your Psychotherapist is Away).

Gradually, Liz made tentative connections between her feelings about the upcoming break and her distrust of her parents, especially her father, whom she described as a "philanderer" and "a rolling stone" who often disappeared from the household for months at a time (see my article:  Reacting to the Present Based on Your Traumatic Experience of the Past, Understanding Why You're Affected By Trauma From a Long Time Ago and Overcoming Trauma: When the Past is in the Present).

Liz also made connections between her feelings of abandonment with her boyfriends when she felt jealous and her feelings of abandonment with her father.

With the help of her therapist, she realized that in the past, on an unconscious level, she sabotaged her relationships because she feared being abandoned, and she would rather end the relationship herself than endure the pain of being left (see my articles: Fear of Abandonment: Leaving Your Relationship Because You're Afraid of Being Abandoned and Fear of Abandonment Can Occur Even in a Stable Relationship).

This realization led to Liz's recognition that, on an unconscious level, she behaved similarly with her therapists.  Her fear of being abandoned by her therapists resulted in mistrust and caused her to leave therapy abruptly.

Liz and her current therapist talked about the possibility that Liz might be tempted to leave this therapy, in much the same way that she left her prior therapies, when her therapist went on vacation.

In the past, Liz had never contemplated this possibility prior to leaving therapy.  Instead of talking about her fear of being abandoned by her therapists in the past, she enacted her fear instead by leaving.  Unconsciously, her fear caused her to leave them before they left her.

Liz told her therapist that she didn't want to leave this therapy, but she had a fear that her therapist might not come back.  She knew this fear was irrational, and she discussed this with her therapist, but the feelings were so strong, she didn't know how to keep them from overwhelming her.

Her therapist taught Liz some self soothing techniques to help her to take care of herself (see my article: Self Soothing Techniques to Use When You're Feeling Distressed).

She also encouraged Liz to continue to write in her journal between sessions to have a way to discharge some of these emotions.

In addition, prior to going on vacation for two weeks, her therapist gave Liz the name of a therapist who would be covering her cases in case Liz needed to talk during their two week break.  Then, they confirmed their next appointment in two weeks.

During the two week break, Liz struggled with her fears of abandonment.  She knew that the intensity of these feelings were triggered by her earlier experiences of being abandoned again and again by her father when he went to live with other women for months at a time.

But, even though she recognized the origin of her feelings, she still felt overwhelmed.  She thought about calling the therapist who was on-call while her therapist was away, but she didn't feel comfortable doing this.

Each day Liz's feelings about abandonment got stronger, and she wrote about her feelings in her journal.  She hoped the days would go quickly so she could talk to her therapist about these feelings when her therapist returned.

But on the day when Liz was supposed to return to therapy, she "forgot" to go to her session.  The day came and went without Liz realizing that she missed her appointment.

When Liz came in for her next therapy session, she and her therapist discussed why Liz missed her appointment, which was another enactment.

Liz recognized that she had unconsciously forgot her appointment because she was angry that her therapist was aware and she felt abandoned.

Being able to talk more comfortably about her feelings was further progress for Liz in therapy.

Mutual Enactments Between the Client and Psychotherapist

At that point, her therapist recommended that they begin work on the trauma that was being triggered in Liz's relationships and in her therapies, which was her family history, especially her history of being abandoned over and over by her father (see my articles: Healing Old Emotional Childhood Wounds That Are Affecting Current Relationships ).

Liz agreed that it was time that she dealt with the source of her problems.

Conclusion
In the clinical vignette above, both the psychotherapist and client engaged in mutual enactments in the therapy.

Even when the therapist anticipated that there would be enactments, based on Liz's history, she found herself in a dilemma in the therapy where an enactment would be inevitable, and shared her dilemma with the client.

When the therapist shared her dilemma with the client, the therapist attempted to make the unconscious conscious for Liz by putting the dilemma into words rather than just behavior.

Even though Liz wasn't able to discuss the dynamic at that point, she began to become aware of her feelings and how they affected her therapist and the therapy.  This was a major shift for Liz, who had never recognized these dynamics before.

Recognizing a mutual enactment won't necessarily prevent future mutual enactments, as illustrated in the above vignette.

The therapist was aware of the possibility that there would be probably be an enactment on Liz's part after the therapist came back from vacation.

Due of their professional training and their own psychoanalysis, most therapists are more aware of mutual enactments prior to their client's awareness.  But, being human, psychotherapist also engage in enactments from time to time, as illustrated in the vignette.

Many psychotherapists agree that it's not a matter of if they and their clients will occasionally get caught up in enactments--it's more a matter of when.

What's most important is how therapists use these enactments, after they have occurred, to shed light on the unconscious processes that are going on between the therapist and the client. The therapist can then use this new awareness to further the therapeutic work and help the client to make breakthroughs.

Getting Help in Therapy
Mutual enactments are common in relationships of all kinds.

When mutual enactments occur in personal relationships, the people in the relationship often don't have the wherewithal to make these unconscious dynamics conscious, so they continue to engage in enactments which can be damaging to the relationships.

When enactments occur in psychotherapy, they are usually related to the client's earlier personal history.

The behavior related to the enactment will continue to repeat itself until the therapist helps the client to become aware of the enactments and they work on the underlying issues instead of enacting them unconsciously.

If you realize that you continue to engage in destructive patterns in your relationships, you might be enacting unconscious behavior from the past.

Rather than continuing to behave in an unconscious way that has a negative impact on your relationships as well as your sense of self, you could benefit from working with a psychotherapist who is skilled in identifying and working through enactments, including mutual enactments (see my articles: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individuals and couples (see my article: The Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I have helped many clients to learn to recognize unconscious feelings so they can discuss them and work through them in therapy rather than enacting them.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Why Your Psychotherapist Can't Be Your Friend

Many clients who are new to psychotherapy don't understand why they can't have a personal relationship with their psychotherapist.  To clarify this issue, my goal in this article is to address why psychotherapists can't be friends with their clients.

See my articles: 

Psychotherapy and the Erotic Transference: Falling "In Love" With Your Therapist

Boundary Violations and Sexual Exploitation in Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy and the Positive Transference). 

Your Therapist Can't Be Your Friend

Psychotherapists have a code of ethics that they must follow.  One of the items in the code of ethics is that therapists and clients can't become friends outside of the therapy sessions.  The purpose of this stipulation is to protect the client from boundary violations and to protect the therapeutic work that the therapist and client are engaged in.

While it's understandable that clients might have a desire to become friends with their therapist, it's up to the therapist to explore this desire, try to understand how it's connected to the client's problems and history, help the client work through this issue, and maintain a professional boundary.

There are times when psychotherapists get caught up in enactments with their clients.  Enactments are usually unconscious on the part of the client and the therapist and often related to prior personal history that gets played out in the therapy.

Mutual enactments are common and exploration and resolution of these enactments can deepen and enhance the work.

The following fictional vignette is about a case where these issues come up in therapy:

Fictional Vignette: Why Your Psychotherapist Can't Be Your Friend and Understanding Mutual Enactments in Therapy

Jane
Jane moved to New York City to start a new job after she completed graduate school.  Although she loved her new job and New York, she felt very lonely on weekends because she didn't know anyone other than her coworkers and they were all married and led busy lives.

She tried various social groups and participated in local events, but she had no luck in forming friendships among the people that she met.  This reinforced a longstanding feeling that she had about herself that she wasn't lovable or good enough for people to want to care about her.

After several months of feeling increasingly lonely, Jane began therapy at a psychotherapy center where they offered sliding scale fees.

After her intake, Jane was assigned to a new woman therapist who was part of the center's training institute, and Jane began attending therapy twice a week.

Jane liked her therapist, Susan, from their first session, which was unusual for Jane.  Usually, she felt shy and awkward when she met someone new, but Susan had a way of helping Jane to be at ease.

Jane looked forward to her therapy sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays.  She liked talking to Susan and felt better afterwards.  But between sessions, Jane still felt lonely.

A few months later, a friend from graduate school, Dee, moved to New York and reconnected with Jane.

Jane and Dee were friends in graduate school and they usually enjoyed each other's company, but now whenever they got together, Jane found her mind wandering back to Susan.  She noticed that she was comparing Dee to Susan and Dee would always fall short.

As time went on and Jane continued to compare Dee unfavorably to Susan in her mind, she spoke to Susan about it in one of their therapy sessions.

Susan was already aware from the way Jane complimented her and how much Jane said she enjoyed their sessions that Jane was idealizing her.  So, she wasn't surprised when Jane told her that she was comparing Dee unfavorably to Susan.

Jane told Susan that she would really like it if they could be friends outside the therapy sessions.  She told Susan that, after all, they were close in age and she suspected that they probably had a lot in common.

Susan listened attentively and then normalized Jane's wish.  She told her that many clients feel this way about their therapists and this was part of an idealizing transference.  She also explained why it was important that they maintain their therapeutic relationship, as opposed to a personal relationship, in order not to cross boundaries and sacrifice their work together. On some level, Jane knew that she and Susan couldn't be friends, but she felt hurt and rejected when she heard Susan tell her this.  She told Susan that she didn't think their therapeutic work would be compromised in any way and, in fact, she thought the work might be enhanced if they became friends.

As Jane and Susan continued to explore these issues, Susan talked to her training supervisor about this issue.  Susan was clear that she wasn't going to violate an ethical boundary, but she felt herself defensively pulling away emotionally from Jane, and she was afraid that this would ruin their work together.

Susan and her training supervisor talked about how Susan could remain balanced in her approach with Jane--neither too friendly nor too distant--to maintain a therapeutic rapport with Jane.

During this time, Jane missed a therapy session.  She was aware that the psychotherapy center's policy was to give at least 48 hours notice (unless there was an emergency) and that she would be responsible for the fee if she gave less than 48 hours notice.  But she left a message for Susan an hour before their appointed session time saying that she wasn't feeling up to going to their session that day.

When Jane returned to her next session, Susan asked Jane about the missed session, and Jane responded that she just didn't feel like coming to therapy that day.  She offered no other explanation.

When Susan reminded her about the center's policy about broken appointments, Jane told her that she didn't feel she should be charged for the appointment because she had come to all her other appointments and this was the first appointment that she missed.

Susan sensed that something had gone awry between Jane and her and that it was probably related to their talk about why she and Jane couldn't be friends.

But when she tried to explore this with Jane, Jane said that her missed session had nothing to do with their discussion and she would rather that they "move on" and talk about more important things than continue to talk about her missed session.

Susan knew that Jane's idealizing transference wouldn't last forever and that an idealizing transference often changes to a negative transference since no therapist could live up to the idealization and remain on a pedestal indefinitely.  But she was surprised that this change happened so quickly.

Susan was also concerned that if there was a negative transference that it would interfere with the work, which she wanted to avoid.

As a new therapist and without the benefit of being able to speak with her supervisor beforehand, Susan told Jane that she would overlook the broken appointment fee this time, but if Jane had another broken appointment, she would have to pay the fee.

When Jane left another message the following week indicating that she wasn't coming to their appointment on the same day as the appointment, Susan spoke with her supervisor about it.

During their supervisory session, Susan and her supervisor talked about "enactments" between clients and therapists.  She explained to Susan that, like many therapists, Susan got caught up in an enactment with Jane when she agreed not to charge her for the missed appointment despite the fact that Jane was well aware of the center's policy and had signed an agreement about broken appointments.

Susan's supervisor told Susan that it appeared that Jane wanted to feel "special" in Susan's eyes and if she couldn't be friends with Susan, she might have unconsciously created this situation where she could feel that she was a special client to Susan where Susan would break the rules for her.

The supervisor encouraged Susan to address and explore this issue with Jane and to explain Susan's role in getting caught up in this enactment.  She also told Susan that, based on the center's policy, Susan would have to collect the fees from Jane.

Jane felt embarrassed about her role in the enactment, but she also understood that she was a new therapist, she was still learning, and that even experienced psychotherapists unconsciously get caught up in mutual enactments with therapy clients.

When Jane returned for her next session, she didn't offer a reason for the last cancellation, so Susan brought up the issue and suggested they talk about it.

Initially, Jane was defensive and told Susan that she didn't want to waste her time talking about this when she had other more important things to talk about it, "And, anyway, isn't it my session to talk about anything that I want to talk about?"

Susan explained why they needed to talk about the cancellations and the unpaid fees.  She started by acknowledging that, as a new therapist who wanted their work to go smoothly, she made a mistake allowing Jane to break the rules.

When Jane heard Susan admit to making a mistake, she softened somewhat.  She still liked Susan and she was concerned that she might have gotten Susan "in trouble" with the center (see my article: Ruptures and Repairs in Psychotherapy).

Susan explained that she wasn't in trouble with the center, but she needed to address the mutual enactment that occurred between them so they could understand the meaning of it.

Reluctantly, Jane admitted that she felt hurt and angry when Susan told her that they couldn't be friends, even though Jane was already aware of the rules.  She also admitted that she could have come in for her therapy sessions, but she was annoyed and decided to skip those sessions.

This discussion led to Jane talking about how she always wanted to feel special with her mother, but she was aware that her younger sister was her mother's favorite, which left Jane feeling that she wasn't good enough or lovable enough to be her mother's favorite.

This lead to their talking about why Jane wanted to feel special to Susan.

Although, as a new therapist, Susan initially feared that what started as a negative transference would lead to the demise of the therapy, she now saw that discussing it was key to getting Jane to open up and get to more core issues.

Jane agreed to pay for the missed sessions, and they continued to work on the core issues of her feelings of being unlovable and not good enough (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

Conclusion
The therapeutic relationship is a unique relationship unlike any other because it's focused on you.

It's common for clients to wish to have a personal relationship with their therapist--either a romantic/sexual relationship or a friendship.

It's the therapist's job to recognize these transferential issues, address them in therapy, and maintain a professional boundary.

It's not unusual for clients' transferential experience to change from an idealized transference to a negative transference, especially since no therapist remains on a pedestal indefinitely.

Addressing transference issues and mutual enactments, if handled well by the therapist, can enhance the therapy by helping the client to address the core underlying issues.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're feeling stuck in your life, you could benefit from working with a skilled psychotherapist who can help you to overcome your problems (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

There are also times when you and your therapist can get stuck in mutual enactments, including boundary violations, when you could benefit from a consultation with another therapist.

Rather than struggling on your own, you could work through your problems with an experienced therapist who has the skills and knowledge to help you overcome your obstacles (see my article: Choosing a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist with over 20 years of experience who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.