Houston Psychoanalytic Society

This event addresses: Collisions and Uncomfortable Countertransference in the Clinical Encounter

Facilitated by Cynthia Mulder, LCSW-S and Nancy Warren, PhD

Collisions and uncomfortable countertransference in the clinical process may have both conscious and unconscious contributions. The patient’s and therapist’s histories, character structure, wishes, and expectancies may clash, often fueled by external stresses and events, and these factors may cause the treatment to flounder, stagnate, or end altogether. We will begin by considering Joyce Slochower’s notion of psychoanalytic collisions in the consulting room. Slochower, who is a relational analyst influenced by Winnicott, examines situations in which the clinician’s personal and professional wishes clash with the realities of everyday clinical work. We will explore ways that psychoanalytic collisions can be productively engaged even if they cannot be fully resolved, which generally requires a maintenance of therapeutic hopefulness along with an acceptance of the therapist’s human fallibilities.

We will then undertake a closer examination of countertransference, specifically, Irwin Hirsch’s notion of coasting in the countertransference. Hirsch is relational analyst and intersubjectivist whose writings over the years have focused largely on countertransferential issues. Coasting refers to the clinician persisting in certain behaviors even after becoming aware of them, behaviors indicating our apparent willingness to sacrifice the patient’s interest for our own comfort and equilibrium. As such, we will examine how clinicians’ character structure and situational stresses influence their preference for certain types of patients and their clinical participation. We will consider how theory, however helpful and necessary, can also become a crutch. Finally, we will examine how money complicates the therapist-patient relationship.

This study group is appropriate for beginning and seasoned clinicians with an intermediate level of knowledge about psychoanalytic theory. We will utilize readings with case examples, which will hopefully stimulate open discussions about our own practices and patients. Study group participants must obtain a copy of the 2 textbook that we will use: Psychoanalytic Collisions (Slochower, 2012) and Coasting in the Countertransference (Hirsch, 2008).