Countertransference: whilst speaking with a client the therapist experiences an emotion (rage, guilt, sadness), physical sensations (cravings, heavy feeling on chest/stomach) or images (walls closing in, heavy clouds). This is however, not the client’s experience. Rather, it is the therapist’s reaction to what the client has said. The therapist recognises and identifies with the content and reacts to it.

Transference: in transference the therapist also experiences an emotion, physical sensation or images. However this is a direct transference from the client. The client could subconsciously be craving to smoke. If the therapist is congruent with the client and in an empathic space then they may feel some urges or cravings themselves. However, this is not related to the therapists’ own experiences but the clients.

Person-Centered Counseling

- Originated by Carl Rogers 1940s

- Emphasis on therapeutic counsellor-client relationship

- Humanistic, experiential-existential apprach

- Present oriented and holistic

- Encourages client's self awareness, exploration, self esteem and competence

- Beneficial for people with adjustment disorders, relationship, occupational and identity problems as well as bereavement and grief

- This group of people usually already have some effective coping skills and are in good contact with reality. Thus they can be together in a therapeutic relationship with the counsellor on a more equal and effective level.

Behavioral Counseling

- B. F. Skinner 1930s/1940s

- Based upon the belief that personality is shaped by environmental factors

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I love how in John Lees article (1999) "What is clinical counselling in context?" he referrs to counselling and therapy as the 'talking cure'.

Projective identification is sometimes recognised in counselling and therapy. Projective Identification is when a patient's unwanted feeling is projected out to someone or something else. Some examples of this in an every day situation would be perhaps a son who is late for a birthday party is feeling rushed and anxious he is late for the festivities. His anxiety is then projected to his mother who is dropping him off, resulting in her feeling similarly anxious. In therapy, if a counsellor is seeing a patient who has a history of being violent then the counsellor may similarly have a sense of impatience and "violently" direct therapy in a more confronting manner.

In some situations the projective indentification involves splitting the self and projecting this onto an external object and the patient identifying with these disowned parts of the self. In most cases the patient does not recognise that they are projectively identifying with the external object/person. In extreme cases projective identification can lead to depersonalisation and confusional states. An example of projective identification when splitting the self occurs would be when someone sneezes and another person covers their own nose as if they had sneezed themselves. Also if someone falls over and cuts their knee and another person feels a similar pain in their knee.

There are two important reasons why projective identification is used. One, it is commonly used to evacuate the unwanted self so it can be used as an attack against others. Second instance why projective identification is used is as a form of communication, to let someone else know what is unbearable and to seek their sense of understanding.

However, projective identification should not be thought of as pathological. In some cases it is useful rather than harmful. For instance, empathy is a form of projective identification. Empathy is defined as being "in someone elses shoes", feeling what it is like in someone else's situation and to be sympathetic and understanding of their sitaution.

Essentially, what is important in regards to mental health and counselling is the extent of projective identification. If a patient is completely lost in another person then this may lead to confusional and delusional states.

Reasons why people go to counselling.