Psychology for Lawyers

transference | countertransference

Preface

"[T]ransference might be thought of as a means used by the brain to make sense of current experience by seeing the past in the present and limiting the input of new information."

--Darnell Ladson & Randon Welton, Recognizing and Managing Erotic and Eroticized Transferences, Psychiatry (2007)

"[T]he greatest cause of our alienation from our real selves is our neurotic involvements with other people, the historical hangovers from childhood, the irrational transferences, in which past and present are confused, and in which the adult acts like a child."

--Abraham H. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature 65 (New York: Viking Press, 1971)

Thomas L. Shaffer & James R. Elkins, Legal Interviewing and Counseling 61-65
(St. Paul, Minnesota: Thompson West, 4th ed., 2005) (revised)
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It is uncommon, in professional relations outside the therapeutic setting, for the professional ("helper") to learn how to take account of his feelings; feelings are simply left to take care of themselves or we find ways to help us forget the feelings we have. They are just there, to be left alone, undisturbed, or perhaps, more problematic, actively ignored or suppressed. They receive little attention (in legal education or continuing legal education programs) or conscious thought, and there is generally no effort to understand how they might influence interactions with clients (or with other lawyers, or judges), or how one might identify and make use of these feelings. We take our feelings for granted, and in doing so, give little thought to the kind of questions that might make us more aware of these feelings: Do I approach all my clients with the same kind of attitude, a professional attitude that has become a legal persona? Or do I allow myself to put aside the mask and respond to each client as the person he or she is or wishes to be? Do I respond to the story the client tells with its unique particulars or to the story as a genre whose plot I have memorized so well that there is no longer a need to listen?

When we talk about the feelings of a client for a lawyer, or the lawyer for and about a client (including negative feelings), we have entered the realm of transference and countertransference, terms probably not familiar to most lawyers. Feelings associated with a countertransference can be witnessed in unexpected behavior, strong feelings (affection and hostility are common), a quick reply, a rebuke, browbeating, abruptness, verbal threats, power moves, seductive behavior. Here are a few clues, from Saxe and Kuvin's "Notes on the Attorney-Client Relationship," clues that signal countertransference in lawyer-client relationships. [David B. Saxe & Seymour F. Kuvin, Notes on the Attorney-Client Relationship, 2 J. Psychiatry & L. 209 (1974)] When these signals are ignored, the client rather than the lawyer is made to bear the burden of them:

--Feelings of discomfort during or after meetings with the client ("most likely indicate inability on the part of the attorney to understand and honestly deal with certain kinds of material which touch on the attorney's own problems").

--Carelessness and discourtesy toward the client, such as being late for appointments, permitting avoidable interruption, or making appointment arrangements that are inconvenient for the client. ("Despite the rationalizations . . . this is usually an . . . indication of his hostility toward his client or his fear that the coming appointment will further produce material that will cause anxiety in the attorney.")

--Strong affectionate feelings for the client, which feelings are usually recognized when the client is of the opposite sex and repressed when he or she is not.

--Inclinations to boast, to colleagues or client, on the importance of the matter the client brings in ("indicative of the attorney's damaged self-concept and his lowered self-esteem . . . a reparative maneuver").

--Avoidance of the client and neglect of his case (the principal source of complaint about lawyers to bar-association grievance committees) ("may indicate serious neurotic conflicts").

--Gossip with others about the client ("[C]ausations may include . . . need to associate with peer group . . . psycho-sexual pathology . . . self-defeating or self-destructive mechanism").

--A tendency to "hammer away at minutiae beyond the scope of even the most intelligent lament." Saxe and Kuvin see this as a manifestation of aggression, and note that it often occurs with a client who is perceived as dissatisfied with the lawyer. "If the attorney is blind to his vulnerability in this area, and contracts with a client who is neurotically 'pain-dependent,' the conduct of the case is usually chaotic, and the end result is usually a disaster for the client . . . ."

--Boredom or drowsiness--"the most important of all responses." Saxe and Kuvin believe this to be "almost inevitably an indicator of extreme anxiety produced in the attorney." The agenda then, of course, would be to locate the source of the anxiety.

Howard F. Stein in his work on countertransference in physician-patient relationships observes that "we discover and recognize" the power of the countertransference "only by stumbling on it, by feeling disturbed by it, or by having someone else identify it." [Howard F. Stein, The Psychodynamics of Medical Practice: Unconscious Factors in Patient Care 21 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)] There is an element of surprise--sometimes confusion, anger, or shame--that comes from this stumbling onto our own feelings. "When we 'accidentally' let slip our feelings--through words, tone of voice, gestures, impulsive actions--we often feel surprised if not overwhelmed by such lapses in self-control." [Id. at 42] Whenever a feeling is denied or ignored and then finds its way back into the conversation or is acted out in behavior, it is overdetermined, which means it is differentiated from on-going reactions by having an unexpected power, a way of making itself known that is unexpected and that takes us by surprise. "It strikes us," Stein says, "unprepared." [Id. at 43]

The countertransference is threatening because it conflicts with the role expectations we have consciously defined for our work with a client. In the world of feeling, a lawyer has no more expertise or knowledge than her client. The compartmentalization of role and self collapse in professional life when we recognize and work with countertransference feelings. Role and persona are ways to institutionalize, that is, regularize and routinize, the professional's response in confusing and threatening situations. But feelings are embedded in even the most routinized response. By gaining insight into countertransference, we see an aspect of the unconscious operating inside and beyond the mask of professionalism.

Readings

"Transference and Countertransference," in Willard Gaylin, Talk Is Not Enough: How Psychotherapy Really Works 72-78 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2000)

Thomas L. Shaffer, Undue Influence, Confidential Relationship, and the Psychology of Transference, 45 Notre Dame Lawyer 197, 204-215, 235-237 (1970)

Freud on Transference [freudfile.org, Romanian Association For Psychoanalysis Promotion]

Class Viewing 8: Adam Phillips: One Way and Another [57:31 mins.] [comment begins at 50:58 mins., ends at 52:10 mins.] [focus on countertransference]

Reference (Videos)

Freud and Transference
[2:48 mins.]

Transference, Countertransference, Projection, and Counterprojection
[5:51 mins.] [Peter Walker]

Countertransference: Difficult Feelings in Therapeutic Work
[16:20 mins.] [Mark Sehl]

Transference & Countertransference
[3:45 mins.]

Transference in the Psychotherapy Process
[5:57 mins.]

Sexual Transference and Countertransference in Psychodynamic Therapy
[14:50 mins.]

Transference & Countertransference in Vicarious Trauma
[5:19 mins.]

Trauma & Transference in Therapy
[14:48 mins.] [Eric Wolterstorff describes the process of traumatic transference and how it emerges in the therapeutic context.] Pt2 [14:35 mins.] Pt3 [14:39 mins.] Pt4 [14:41 mins.] Pt5 [11:21 mins.]

"In Treatment": Testing Paul
[7:58 mins.]

Transference
[3:59 mins.] [Soul Salt Coaching]

Transference, Projection, and Boundaries
[3:52 mins.] [Soul Salt Coaching]

Take a Journey Inward. What Is Psychoanalysis?
[3:27 mins.]

Transference
[34:24 mins.] [Corey Human]

The Transference Along the Analytic Process
[1:3:28 mins.] [Jacques Siboni] [Lacian perspective]

Reference (David Richo)

On Wounds [1:53 mins.] On Trust [3:32 mins.] On the Journey [2:37 mins.]

David Richo with Scott London
[3:26 mins.]

On Coming Home to Who You Are
[3:56 mins.]

Reference (Web Resources)

Transference: Uses and Abuses
[Joseph Burgo]

Clarifying and Re-mystifying Transference, Counter-Transference and Co-transference
[Gary Tompkins]

C.G. Jung on Transference
[Maxson J. McDowell]

Contact Professor Elkins