The Therapist’s Shame: Understanding Projective Identification and Countertransference

Chronic defensiveness, like chronic avoidance, isn’t a victimless crime.

In our self-protected cocoons, sheltering us from the exaggerated slings and arrows of existence, we often fail to note how our armors scar our opponents – the ones we love. For the fragile psyche, the pangs of emotional harm, and the accompanying catastrophic predictions, create an intolerable tension. Do we run or do we fight? Will they lose respect for us? And what would that mean if they did? Chronic defensiveness, or the unwillingness to tolerate and consider criticism, frequently manifests in the consulting room of psychotherapy, as much so in the decisions of the man on the pedestal as in those of his audience.

This appears in the therapist’s projective identification and countertransference. She becomes an actress in a play, hidden from herself.

In psychoanalytic thought, transference is the mechanism by which expectations and feelings from a significant relationship in the past (usually with a caregiver) are misplaced and rediscovered in a new but somehow similar person. Countertransference is simply the interlocutor’s emotional and cognitive reactions to the manifestations of the transfer or another’s projections. Whereas in transference, feelings from the past are moved into the present, when projecting, the individual shifts one aspect of the present to another, specifically his disavowed self onto the other. And when the other accepts the offered mask, she’s believed to have identified with the projection. According to psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams, to increase the likelihood a projection will work, it has to fit the external reality, meaning that projections tend to fall apart when they’re completely removed from it.

For many therapists, there isn’t much of a process occurring, as the seemingly internalized fantasies were likely already there before meeting the patient. We tend to get high off of some of the projections and transfers, already hoping for and expecting them. Since so much of our field is wrapped up with our reputations and ability to sell ourselves, we secretly wish we’re omnipotent. And many of our clients wish for us to be as well. In seeking their validation, or by providing advice, we attempt to cultivate the sense of security that stems from authority. And they, in this respect, continue to believe that there’s someone out there capable of being their savior.

Nietzsche noted that we prefer our desire to the object desired, which may not always be true, but is in co-dependent relationships. On the one hand, the client feels her desire to be like a child’s first blanket. On the other, the therapist feels that same desire, at least momentarily, quenching her insufferable thirst. And as the relationship moves onward without ever forward, she’s knocked off of her throne and blamed for her sins. In my own sessions, I’ve found myself moving from one space to the other, wondering how my patient came to hate me so much. I became overly defensive in every way possible. I feared losing them as much as myself, or, rather, my identity.

How fascinating is it that we depend so much on others to keep up our delusions and how we fear losing them? So many therapists are life-long high achievers, having spent so much of those lives in the spotlight of success. Yet, holding onto the identity of being the best becomes the ultimate hinderance to success in their work. By being defensive, protecting my pride and business, I invalidated my clients’ experiences, whether or not they were projections or transferred experiences, and, by doing so, failed to convince them of my own perspectives. It should have been less so about whether I was right or wrong, but more so about how they interpret their worlds. In essence, the chronically defensive actor merely reinforces the play, doing little to help its star exit the stage.

Whether we’re good or bad therapists, ideally, should be the last thing on our minds. Chasing self-love here, as with chasing the high of any other drug, sabotages another relationship. So, we’re often stuck between what’s actually helpful and being who we’ve always been, or wanted to be. Yet, what happens in that consulting room is seldomly personal, the good and the bad.

At times, patients will hold cynical (and irrational) beliefs and place the burden of proof on the therapist, expecting them to create an air-tight case against their views, not acknowledging how their commitment to irrational thought precludes a successful rebuttal. Essentially, patients tend to get better when they feel ready to and don’t when they don’t. Although I frequently gave my own therapist much credit while in treatment, looking back, I realize that I deeply wanted to change. And mostly due to how poor my life was. Our patients, sometimes, want us to feel as helpless as they do, making sure that nothing we say matters, needing to blame us while at the same time expecting us to fix them, also secretly hoping that we never do. And, just as often, they want to pretend that we’ve healed them. Illusions pervade this timeless dance. It’s our job to see beyond them.