"Oh God, what do I do with this patient?! : countertransference reactions of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists working with religious patients.
Date
2014-07-07
Authors
Kallenbach, Bradley Dean
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Abstract
This study aimed to explore the countertransference responses of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists working with religious patients. By elucidating the various responses that devout patients may provoke in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists, it also sought to investigate how differences in religious orientation - which referred to atheistic, agnostic, theistic, or a combination of these metaphysical views – between patient and therapist may influence the nature of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists’ countertransference responses to their religious patients. Thirdly, it endeavored to understand how psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists manage religiously influenced countertransference responses. A sample of six psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists participated in a self developed, semi-structured interview. A thematic content analysis of the psychotherapists’ interview transcripts revealed that the therapists’ countertransference responses to their religious patients were broadly negative, and primarily took the form of feelings of paralysis and frustration. Concerning the extent to which the therapists perceived that differences in religious orientation between themselves and their patients influenced the nature of their countertransference reactions, a key finding was that, while the theistic therapists generally noted these responses, the agnostic therapists seemed to give more attention to them during the interviews, while reflecting on the extent to which their agnosticism may partially account for the intensity of their countertransference paralysis and frustration. Most of the agnostic therapists, moreover, were able to identify early personal experiences that may have contributed to these responses. Thirdly, regarding the management of these countertransference responses, all the therapists alluded to the significance of supervision, colleagues and their own therapy. It was also found that the therapists’ countertransference reactions to their religious patients were partly a consequence of the therapists’ perspectives on what constitutes healthy and pathological religion, and perceived similarities between certain religio-mystical concepts and aspects of psychoanalytic thought. The study elucidates the complex interaction between various factors that conceivably influence the nature of psychoanalytic psychotherapists’ countertransference reactions to religious patients, as well as the necessity for therapist self-awareness when working with religious patients, with the broader aim of offering an example of an increasingly applied and relevant form of psychoanalytic praxis in a country with a diverse and inherently religious population.