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Mental-health workers are taught to use personal and process aware-ness to avoid "transference" - allowing client's traits and behaviors to trigger the clinician's own psychological wounds, distortions, and reactions in a way that hinders effective service or harms the client. The concept of personality subselves suggests why transference happens, and options for reducing it. Premise - each personality subself has its own values, goals, and per-ceptions of the world. If (1) some of a clinician's subselves are activated by some (perceived) client behavior or traits, and (2) those subselves distrust the resident true Self's wisdom or reliability, they may blend with (disable) the clinician's Self and cause thoughts, behaviors, emotions, and needs that are professionally inappropriate or harmful. When a clinician is dominated by a false self, s/he is highly vulnerable to unconscious reality distortions (e.g. denials and rationalizations) that hinder admitting and reducing transference. Premise - clinicians are ethically responsible to (a) monitor and in-crease their true Self's leadership, and subself teamwork and trust (Project 1); and (b) to use supervision and consultation that support these concepts. Talking about transference will probably raise subselves' anxieties, not in-crease their trust in the clinician's Self (capital "S"). A more productive option is some form of Inner-family ("parts") therapy. Premise - human-service agencies, case managers, program directors, funders, and licensing and accreditation organizations are responsible for evaluating these premises and acting on their conclusions. more detail / Project 1 index & guidebook / Q&A / skeptical? / close |
Clinical