Transference and Countertransference: Why They Matter in Every Counselling Relationship
A client who was always the good child becomes furious when you end a session on time. A practitioner who prides herself on patience finds herself dreading one particular Tuesday appointment. Neither reaction is random. Transference and countertransference are among the most useful concepts a practitioner can hold, whatever their modality, because they turn the relationship itself into information. This article explains both and how training develops the capacity to work with them.
Transference: the past in the present
Freud first observed that patients related to him as if he were a significant figure from their earlier life, bringing feelings, expectations and patterns of relating that belonged elsewhere. Transference is now understood as universal: everyone carries templates of relationship formed in early attachment, and these templates shape how new relationships are perceived. In therapy the relationship is intense, frequent and asymmetrical, so transference emerges vividly.
Transference can be positive, showing as idealisation or dependence, or negative, showing as suspicion, contempt or fear. It is neither a nuisance nor a sign that something has gone wrong. It is the client's history arriving in the room where it can finally be worked with.
Countertransference: the practitioner's response
Countertransference originally meant the practitioner's own unresolved material being stirred by the client. The concept has since widened to include the full range of the practitioner's emotional responses, including those evoked by the client's transference. Contemporary thinking distinguishes responses that belong mainly to the practitioner, which supervision and personal therapy address, from responses that are induced by the client and reveal something about the client's inner world. Boredom, protectiveness, irritation, arousal, helplessness and dread are all data.
Recognising these processes in practice
Noticing is the first skill. Reflecting rather than reacting is the second.
A client's reaction seems out of proportion to what actually happened in the session.
You notice yourself behaving unusually with one client: running over time, forgetting notes, feeling unusually careful or unusually blunt.
Relationship patterns the client describes outside therapy begin to appear between you.
You feel pulled to play a role: rescuer, judge, parent, adversary.
Working with the relationship
In psychodynamic practice, transference is explored directly and sensitively, often by linking what is happening between practitioner and client to patterns in the client's wider life. In other modalities the concepts are used more implicitly: to manage ruptures, to understand why a technique is being resisted, or to avoid enactments in which the practitioner unwittingly repeats the client's original wound. Either way, the capacity to observe the relationship while participating in it is a mark of maturity in the work.
Developing the capacity
This is not a skill learned from reading alone. It develops through experiential training, close supervision in which the practitioner's responses are examined without shame, and personal therapy that makes one's own templates visible. A psychodynamic diploma offers a structured route: theory, case discussion, reflective writing and a group in which the dynamics under study are lived as well as described.
How ICPS College can help
If this topic is central to your work, the Professional Diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling & Insight Therapy at ICPS College is delivered live online, is CPD-accredited, and is designed for counsellors, psychotherapists, social care and healthcare professionals across Ireland and beyond.
Frequently asked questions
Does transference happen in CBT or person-centred counselling?
Yes. Transference is a feature of human relating, not of one modality. Different approaches vary in how explicitly they work with it.
Is countertransference a sign of a bad therapist?
No. Having emotional responses to clients is inevitable. The professional question is whether the practitioner notices, reflects and uses them responsibly, ideally with supervision.
What is projective identification?
A process in which a client unconsciously induces in the practitioner a feeling the client cannot bear to own. The practitioner's experience then offers a window into the client's inner world.
This article is for educational purposes and does not replace clinical supervision, professional training or individual therapy.
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