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Write a 1250 word paper answering; Sometimes, there is something in the client that influences the counselor’s unconscious feelings which may interfere with the counseling process

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Write a 1250 word paper answering; Sometimes, there is something in the client that influences the counselor’s unconscious feelings which may interfere with the counseling process. This is known as countertransference. For most psychologists, countertransference keeps the sessions from being objective and must be controlled. Bethan et al. (2005) and other contemporary therapists, however, propose that such countertransference may not be all that bad. They may even have diagnostic and therapeutic relevance which may facilitate rather than inhibit the treatment of the client.

This paper will discuss how gender or/and ethnic differences can become an issue in the counseling relationship. The example will be the case of an Asian American woman client engaging the professional counseling service of a Caucasian male therapist.

In therapy, being able to trust a counselor by divulging deeply personal issues may involve the development of some attachment to him or her. This theory was first popularized by Freud as his most important clinical discovery and was termed it as transference (Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1998). Transference is defined as:

the client’s experience of the therapist that is shaped by the client’s own psychological structures and past and involves displacement, onto the therapist, of feelings, attitudes and behaviours belonging rightfully in an earlier significant relationship’’ (Gelso & Hayes, 1998, p. 51).

However, in some cases, it is the counselor that is affected by some characteristics of the client. For example, the counseling relationship between a male therapist and a woman client may initially be awkward due to inherent gender differences between them. It is also possible that there is initial sexual tension that may lead to the attraction which very well influences the interaction ( Pope, Keith-Spiegel & Tabachnick, 2006).