Definition
Countertransference is a term use to describe the therapist’s emotional responses to the client, which are attributed to his or her unconscious demands and conflicts, relative to his or her conscious responses to the client’s characteristics. This experience may hinder the understanding of the patient by the therapist, so that it affects his or her therapeutic performance (Abess, n.d.).
Substance abuse rehabilitation facilities
Professional management for substance abuse conditions is undergoing rapid transformation. Research and assessment studies are discovering fresh techniques and devices for promoting change and recovery. Payers and the general public expectations from the professionals are increasing. At the same time, licensing and certifying organs are escalating their standards and demanding higher performance from prospects for licensure and certification.
Occasionally, professionals may have to deal with clients that have co-occurring disorders and who present with intricate life conditions. A more complex disorder, translate to a more advanced and skillful treatment and supervision. To satisfy the increasing expectations the substance abuse rehabilitation institution must be in a position to; (i) to directly and objectively monitor, encourage, and assess clinical competence: (ii) guarantee commitment to evidence-based performance; and (iii) escalate treatment potency and cost-effectiveness.
In the past, professional substance abuse management institutions have invested resources towards provision of direct care services while failing to provide substantial resources to the clinical supervisors. Supervision time is insufficient in majority of the rehab institutions, and the supervision practice is more administrative as oppose to clinical. Noteworthy, direct clinical supervision of councilors is seldom an agenda of an agency personnel improvement program (U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2007).
Issues that arise from counter-transference
Transference and counter-transference issues arising from the interaction between the patient and the professional can become delicate and pathological or psychosocially detrimental (U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2007).
Majorly, addiction counselors have encountered similar issues one time or another similar to those presented by the patient to the “counselor client dyad.” This is crucial in the sense that the counselor identifies with a client because they remind them of a patient in the past a phenomenon called countertransference.
This phenomenon emerges due to the professional experiences as a reaction to involvement in the counseling activity. The countertransference is actually what the professional directs to the patient including specific attitudes and emotions.
Conventionally, the countertransference occurrence is best perceived as a compromise development between forces that intrude on the mind of profession. countertransference concerns the counselor’s “perceptions and understanding of the client, the projections and covert messages contained in the client’s communications, and the memories, [fantasies] and conflicts aroused in the counselor by these communications” (Heninmann, 1950, p. 82 cited in U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2007).
Logically, countertransference and transference concerns of an alcoholic or alternative drug dependent patient differ from those in non-dependent patients.
The patient’s limitations, developmental efforts, coping strategies, and addictive or dependent characteristics collectively play significant roles in the success or failure of of the dialect association. One paramount association is shifting the external tension resolution or alcoholism to the professional (Krueger, 1982, p. 601, cited in U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2007).
This process may complicate things when the profession has a thing in common with the patient. According to Krugger [(1982, p. 599), cited in U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2007], Identity interaction are conscious or unconscious appreciation of self. According to Krugger; countertransference response may arise from response such as; (a) drinking habit (b) the alienating, provoking, characteristics of the client; and (c) the countertransference reaction to the patient’s character disorders.
Reference List
Abess, J. F. (n.d.). Glossary Terms in the field of psychiatry and neurology. Web.
McKinney, J.R, and Thomas, R.E. (2010). Transference and Countertransference. Journal of Addictive Disorders. Web.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2007). Competencies for substance abuse treatment clinical supervisors. Rockville. Substance abuse and mental health services administration center for substance abuse treatment. Web.