Therapist empathy and countertransference in clinical practice

Psychotherapy

An important guideline in assessing a client's affective response in facing a problem is to expand and elaborate on his/her affect. This means that the therapist should give the client an opportunity to explore their feelings further. This strategy allows the client to understand his/her previous behavior, and adopt a new one, which will enable him/her to recover from feelings of pain and disappointment concerning a particular undertaking s/he had experienced. Taking away the pain must adopt a similar strategy explained earlier, wherein the client allows various feelings be felt within him/her, letting these emotions be the channels through which s/he can start shifting from having negative to positive emotions/feelings. Responding in an empathic manner is a complicated task to undertake, which is why it is important for the therapist to take control of the client and firmly encourage the client to make a decision or take an action that shall be productive for his/her emotional being. Lastly, interpersonal communication between the therapist and the client through a technique called, "change from the inside out," will result to effective therapy especially when the therapist is tasked to re-experience the intensity of the pain that s/he feels.