A Study of play therapists’ Countertransference Experience

• Main Author: 吳蓓芬
• Other Authors: 葉貞屏
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/29892384282447840572

碩士 === 臺北市立教育大學 === 心理與諮商學系碩士班 === 97 === The purpose of this research was to explore the counter-transference experiences of play therapists, including the understanding of counter-transference, counter-transference experiences (feelings, opinions, and behaviors), reasons for counter-transference, dilemmas and adaptive strategies of counter-transference, methods for coping with counter-transference, and the effect on the individual and professional abilities after dealing with counter-transference. We hope that results mentioned above can increase our understanding of counter-transference experiences of play therapists. We used an in-depth interview qualitative research method to carry out this research. After transcribing the content of interviews with eight play therapists into verbatim text we proceeded to perform data analysis and induction of the contents with content analytic method. The findings of the overall data analysis are listed below： 1. During our research we found that there are three aspects of the play therapists understanding of counter-transference: First, the definition of counter-transference, for example counter-transference can be defined as having subjective feelings and opinions towards the reactions, characteristics, background, and therapy relationship of the child participating in therapy. Counter-transference occurs when the play therapist has physiological conflicts or unfinished business, and counter-transference is influenced by early-age experiences. Second, the opinions of counter-transference: Counter-transference is related to the characteristics and values of the play therapist. Counter-transference is a universal phenomena, hard to avoid, natural, and counter-transference is a display of “sincerely” caring for the child participating in therapy. Negative counter-transference is not a professional display, and if the effects of counter-transference on the therapy relationship are not perceived and dealt with it could exploit the interests of the client, or even harm the client. If it can be identified whose needs that counter-transference is satisfying, counter-transference is not necessarily a bad thing. Counter-transference is influenced by early-age experience, and different stages of the understanding of counter-transference are different. Third, the functions of counter-transference include allowing the play therapists to better understand themselves, providing therapy information, providing corrective experience, and acting as a great medium for transferring “sincerity”. 2. Our research found that the experience of counter-transference includes three aspects: First, feelings of counter-transference include feelings towards the child participating in therapy, feelings toward the child’s significant others, and various feelings during therapy which usually are negative feelings and not positive feelings. Second, there are many different identity types of counter-transference opinions: identifying with the child participating in therapy, identifying with a significant other, not identifying with the child, and not identifying with the significant other. There are also different types of expectations including expectations of the child participating in therapy or his/her significant others, expectations towards the therapy process, not having faith in being able to help the child, wanting to help the child, wanting to satisfy personal needs. Third, counter-transference behaviors include ending the therapy before the scheduled time, constantly checking how much time is left in the session, teaching the child participating in therapy, helping the child to solve problems, being overly concerned with the child, praising or encouraging the child, consoling the child, not being able to focus on the child during the therapy session, losing control, showing evasive behaviors, rejecting, forgetting, catalyze overly, obsessed with the child, thanking the adoptive parents or evaluating significant others, undermining professional boundaries, and developing other relationships. 3. We found in our research that the reasons for counter-transference include both aspects of the play therapist and the child accepting therapy. The former includes early-age experiences, personal issues, values, personal needs, personal preferences, personal characteristics, and life experiences. The latter includes the reaction or behavior model of the child personal therapy, special issues. A reason that is related to both aspects is characteristic conflicts. 4. Our research identified both dilemmas and adaptive strategies that occur during cases of counter-transference. Dilemmas include obstacles of the work system, such as lacking supervision or peer supervision, not enough supervision oriented activities, limitation of the time of supervision, pressure from significant others such as parents, teachers, etc. Furthermore other inhibitors of dealing with counter-transference include a poor level of physical and mental state of the play therapist, the cognitive load being limited and personal issues not being resolved. The training content and emphasis of novice play therapist and a lack of experience can also inhibit the handling of counter-transference. Other dilemmas include counter-transference is often not the focus of therapy and can therefore be overlooked by the therapist, and thus inhibiting the dealing with of counter-transference. In order to adapt to and cope with the above dilemmas play therapists have developed the following adaptive strategies: pursuing further professional education, peer supervision, increasing professional abilities, self observation, etc to adapt to situations where supervision assistance cannot be used to solved counter-transference problems. Other strategies used are adjusting the workload in order to adapt to being overly busy or having to attend to too many cases, temporarily stop accepting cases in order to adapt to a poor physical and mental state, strengthening and improving the training of new therapists or continuing to accept more cases to increase work experience and views of life in order to improve the ability of the play therapist to deal with occurrences of counter-transference. 5. We found through our research that the dealing with of counter-transference can be classified into “on the spot coping” and “after the fact coping”. The former includes cutting or inhibiting emotions, temporarily putting the matter aside, taking a time-out to perform introspection, self monitoring, self perceiving, pacifying emotions, and interpreting the behavior of the child accepting therapy. The latter includes two aspects: relying on the assistance of others and dealing with the problem oneself. Relying on others includes seeking the assistance of a supervisory or advisory doctor, peer supervision, individual advising, social worker’s reminders, holding individual case seminars, attending workshops, and referrals. Dealing with the problem oneself includes self perception, self analysis, performing a shout of faith before accepting another case, and reading about related topics in books. 6. We identified many ways in which the dealing with of counter-transference can personally affect the play therapist, including causing the play therapist to become more and more self-accepting or more and more able to deal with problems themselves when facing personal issues, identification with professional roles, professional confidence, attitude when dealing with or facing problems, the way in which the therapists sees themselves, change in the treatment of family members, self criticism or self expectation, thanking the child accepting therapy for giving them an opportunity to learn and progress, and an emphasis on personal care. Professional aspects influences include a change in opinion towards the child accepting therapy and his/her parents as well as the method of helping the child to solve problems, transformation in the performance of helping others, and improvement of professionalism which includes: knowing how to solve counter-transference problems, better understanding the child accepting treatment, better understanding of the medical therapy system, re-establishment of professional boundaries, knowing how to limit dangerous behavior, knowing that personal issues should be distinguished, knowing that personal issues affect therapy, emphasizing the detection of the child’s social interaction model and understanding the child’s background and experience, emphasizing more the organization of case experience, the focal point of therapy returning to the child who is accepting therapy, returning to the needs of the child, attaching importance to further study and supervisory systems, paying attention to self exploration, the ability to focus on grasping minute details, able to make good use of the therapy relationship, having a better understanding of children with special issues. Others include understanding the importance of the “sincerity” of the play therapist. In conclusion we also carry out a discussion of the research results mentioned above, and give advice to practical workers in this area as well as researchers who plan to research this issue in the future.