Introduction
Intake sessions are important processes in psychological therapies that rely on the counsellor – client relationship. Still, when not properly directed, these sessions pose major challenges to the therapies. In this report, I will give my opinion about possible interferences created when conducting intake sessions, ways to overcome identified challenges, the nature of the session and diversity differences that therapists go through in the initial sessions.
Causes of Interference
From my own experience, I believe that most obstructions in psychological therapies occur due to counsellor-client relationships. Both therapists and clients experience unconscious thoughts and feelings towards each other. These beliefs are created by the unconscious region of the brain or past experiences. Perhaps, people would ask how counsellor-client relationships interfere with information gathering. The paper is to discuss two common relationships that may delay or introduce obstacles in sessions.
The first relationship is the development of unconscious feelings by their patients towards their analysts. This relationship element is called transference. I have noticed that transference occurs due to comparisons made by patients to some people they have encountered in life or natural attraction and their preferences. Patients, in this case, are attracted towards therapists and want to establish close interpersonal relationships. As a result, they are interfering with the session. Even though transference often manifests itself in the form of erotic and affectionate attractions, it is also displayed as wrath, hatred, overdependence, or distrust. All these feelings cause discomfort to both the patient and the therapist and interfere with the process of gathering information.
The second relationship is the development of unconscious feelings towards patients by their analysts, commonly known as countertransference. This element can be equated to transference because of the nature of feelings and attractions experienced. The only difference is that in countertransference, emotions and feelings are developed by the therapists toward the patient. It is believed that patients’ transference reactions or counsellors’ backgrounds and personal issues cause countertransference responses. Countertransference leads to lack of objectivity when analysts are unable to establish firm boundaries with their patients.
Ways to Overcome Interference
In order to avoid interference during intake sessions, I believe that therapists should pay close attention to their feelings and protect their clients by concentrating more on the obstacles in order to help clients in discovering unconscious elements. Therapists should also be conscious of countertransference issue to handle patients who display transference. When clients are unconscious of their transference, therapists can assist them in accepting that notion and achieving certain awareness of the issue. This would entail confronting clients with questions, such as, “Why are you vexed by my presence?”. A showdown in this sense creates consciousness and prepares the patients so that they would be ready to explore the nature of their behaviours. Therapists can also use questions that bring about acceptance and awareness to patients. As a consequence, patients would be able to distinguish and separate types of relationships and interpret how they ought to relate to their therapists.
To overcome countertransference, therapists should first recognize their humanness in therapeutic relationships. Acceptance would lead to open discourse and sharing concerns that serve to eliminate possible biases and preconceptions. Differences resulting from therapist countertransference and client transference are certainly hard to deal with and could cause pain to either the client or a counsellor. These issues are better dealt with after therapists are aware of situations they are to face and apply honesty when treating their patients. Therapists should also apologize and accept clients’ feelings as a blameless way to deal with the issues raised.
The Nature of Session
The first intake session acts as an introductory sitting, where therapists and clients meet for the first time in the therapy process. The nature of this session mainly depends on the limits set by therapists. When therapists accept transference and demarcate firm and clear boundaries to guide the therapeutic relationship, a safe psychoanalytic field is established (Mann, 2013). This creates tolerance for clients to partake in their feelings, including feelings directed to therapists. In turn, therapists are not supposed to move out against the tactile sensations, but rather intervene in a therapeutic manner, especially when dealing with clients whose religion, gender, cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds differ from their own. However, when this is not achieved, diversity differences interfere with the session.
Diversity Differences in Psychotherapeutic Dialogues
Most diversity differences are caused by communication barriers, lack of cultural knowledge and/or prejudices and biases that people have towards others (Hays, 2008; Sue & Sue, 2012). Intake sessions determine the success or the nature of the therapeutic process. Unfortunately, significant diversity differences emerge as both therapists and clients overlook crucial ethnic and cultural signals. As a result, the lack of cultural experience in psychotherapeutic dialogues leads to stereotyping clients and therapists correspondingly (La Roche & Maxie, 2003).
Assumptions of knowledge of cultural knowledge by therapists introduce disturbing elements into the therapeutic session, as information could be misinterpreted due to generalization. For instance, on that point is a universal feeling that some groups of masses cannot afford long-term therapies and others are resistant to long-term therapies. As a result, psychotherapeutic dialogues may inappropriately overemphasize or overlook some social elements (Hays, 2008).
The therapists’ cultural experience affects the establishment of therapeutic alliances during the beginning sessions. It is common that most therapists use cultural information to stereotype clients. As a result, barriers are created on first-day therapy, and continuous sessions may not bear positive outcomes. On the other hand, clients may stereotype clients and have misrepresented ideologies about them. For example, transference may occur during the first session, and they compare therapists to people they disliked or liked.
Assumed lack of cultural knowledge also leads to diverse differences, especially in cases when therapists want to prove to clients their competency to clients. This is a common phenomenon where therapists, due to common insecurities in dealing with social issues, shares unspecified cultural information. This information may be inaccurate and cause harm to the client; hence, the therapeutic session backfires, and most likely clients discontinue the sessions.
Differences in psychotherapeutic sessions may also arise when therapists fail to recognize and address multi diversity elements in clients (La Roche & Maxie, 2003). Some clients may identify with different cultures, creating multiple identities. Thus, therapists are heavily tasked when trying to understand the impacts and changes of particular forms of cultural constructs. When faced with such challenges, therapists give more focus on one cultural element and ignore others. In turn, a patient may sense that important factors are not addressed. Psychotherapeutic dialogues should emphasize on understanding clients’ experiences through developing interpersonal dynamics that promote discussion of relevant topics and overlooking others. Most significantly, the examination of differences during the first intake session influences subsequent healing sessions.
References
Hays, A. (2008). Addressing cultural complexities in practice: Assessment, diagnosis, and therapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
La Roche, M., & Maxie, A. (2003). Ten considerations in addressing cultural differences in psychotherapy. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34 (2), 180–186.
Mann, D. (2013). Love and hate: psychoanalytic perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.
Sue, W., & Sue, D. (2012). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.