Countertransference 101

Over at Maggie’s Farm, Dr. Bliss a href=”http://www.yankeefarm.net/archives/10137-Office-Romance-Sometimes-a-cigar-is-just-a-cigar….html”feels badly for a Baylor psychiatric resident /awho has a dilemma; she is attracted to her patient. Oddly enough, she is told by her supervisor that she is the only resident the supervisor has seen a href=”http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1357849?pageNumber=1″with this problem:/abr /br /blockquote“I think you need to take this one to Dr Gabbard. I have never seen a resident with this problem before.” “Never!?” I thought, “I’m the only one!?” I worried incessantly about what was wrong with me to feel so incapacitated, unable to feel in control of the therapy in this particular case. I kept thinking in circular fashion, “I should not have this problem. I must stop it. I can’t stop it. I should not have this problem”—and on and on./blockquotebr /br /The therapist/patient attraction is psych 101. It’s generally covered in supervision on a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-transference”counter-transference issues/a the first year of doing therapy, at least it was in my experience getting a PhD in psychology. Too bad this psychiatric resident wasn’t prepared in advance–it would have helped her to deal with the situation without the guilt and anguish. Perhaps that is the difference between psychiatric training in preparing for the MD and psychological training for the PhD–the human component might be emphasized more for the PhD,a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-transference”/a both for the therapist and the patient.