Transference and Countertransference in Pastoral Care, Counseling and Supervision

Abstract

Transference and counter-transference are psychodynamic phenomena with an uneasy history.  People often seek pastoral care and pastoral counseling for painful problems in living that confound them– problems they act out through reciprocal transferences toward each other.  It is commonplace for our patients and trainees to be largely or completely unaware of these dynamics because of their unconscious origin and function.  As transference and counter-transference dynamics occur and are then interpreted, a typical first reaction of patients, trainees and supervisors in training is to feel self-conscious, embarrassed, and ashamed.  Making oneself vulnerable at deep emotional levels elicits the terror of being exposed and shamed to the core of one’s self.  This fear regularly leads people to avoid situations in which a therapist or supervisor might interpret material outside of the person’s awareness, and these dynamics are at the root of resistance to intra-psychic self-understanding. The clinical fact of flight from the intra-psychic reality of our unconscious processes is the driving force of all our defenses.