Fostering Friendship: Pair Therapy for Treatment and Prevention by Robert Selman

Author:Robert Selman [Selman, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Social Services & Welfare, Social Science, Political Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781351327428
Google: Eqw0DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36704988
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1997-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Transference and Countertransference in Pairs

As we have stated, the centrality of the development of a close, interpersonal relationship, and the use of that relationship as the context for social interpretation and behavior change, is the primary factor distinguishing pairs as a unique intervention. We have also put forth our belief that while the children’s relationship is the primary focus, the interpersonal interaction between the therapist and the children is an important vehicle for therapeutic change as well. As such, the supervisor and trainee together should be aware of the impact of past relationship patterns and experiences on the developing relationships between all participants in the pair context.

Although the ongoing behavior and the shaping of new interaction patterns are the substance of the work in pairs, there are important intrapsychic processes that have interpersonal ramifications for the therapist-child relationship. These processes, transference and counter-transference, traditionally have been identified as central to reparation and growth in individual psychotherapy. Transference, through which the child brings experiences and expectations related to past relationships (especially with significant others such as his parents) to his relationship with the therapist, is an important consideration for the pair therapist in interpreting responses of the pair partners to his presence and his behavior. Likewise, the process of countertransference, whereby the therapist brings his own feelings and experiences from other relationships to his therapeutic interactions with clients, can have an impact upon the trainee’s capacity for tolerating and encouraging certain relationship experiences in the pair.

The pair therapist does not place the therapist-client relationship in the primary position it occupies in individual therapy, where the therapist may use transference as the context through which past dysfunctional patterns are clarified, interpreted and reworked. However, as participants in a relationship-centered treatment, the transference-based reactions of the pair therapist and each paired child cannot be dismissed. Transference and countertransference reactions illuminate the internal working models of relationships that influence the behavior of the therapist and the paired children. As mentioned earlier, the child who has experienced abuse and rejection in past relationships may bring to pairs the expectation of being abused and rejected in a similar way. He may overreact to the therapist’s limit-setting interventions as stringent and mean, fearing the punitive outcome he has experienced in the past. Likewise, a therapist who has a family history characterized by conflict may find it difficult to tolerate his pair’s strife-filled interactions, and may seek to swiftly smooth over difficulties which, if explored more fully, could carry important positive lessons for the children.

These natural transferential responses display an individual’s internalized understanding and expectations about the behavior of others (and himself) in relationship. It is these understandings and expectations that pair therapy attempts to confront, reveal, and hopefully, revise. Left unattended, they hold the potential to interfere with the development of a new, “corrective interpersonal experience” for the pair partners.

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