In a working situation with an elderly client, the care giver may have personal experiences with emotional displays and responses. This could have created psychological damage within the care giver, which is then projected in the form of negative responses. A frustrated elderly client may, for example, be in a constantly bad and hostile mood. A care giver who has experienced this from parents as a child may experience this in an extremely negative way and respond accordingly.
Induced countertransference is a process of empathy that is generally manipulated by the client. A client may, for example require a specific response to his or her situation by a therapist. Most commonly, such a client would seek sympathy or some other form of recognition that is not otherwise experienced in his or her life. For a care giver, an elderly person might act in an excessively helpless way to elicit more from the care giver than is necessary. This could be the result of general loneliness...
From a therapeutic point-of-view, it can be quite easy to give in to this type of countertransference.
Both transferrence and countertransference should be addressed if the therapeutic relationship is to become and remain a healthy one. If not addressed the emotions and experience projected onto the counselor or the client could have harmful effects on the relationship between the two. Because such emotions are generally negative, it could lead to consistently negative feelings between the counselor and client, which will harm the potential for success during the process of counseling.
In conclusion, the therapeutic process is one that involves strong emotions. More often than not, these result from past experiences. The therapist or care giver should carefully navigate these in order to maintain the positive effect of the relationship.
