Utilising Clinical Supervision for Navigating Countertransference: A Guide for School Counsellors
As dedicated professionals, it's essential for us to recognise and manage our own emotions and reactions when working with students.
Understanding Countertransference
Countertransference refers to the school counsellor's emotional reaction to a student that is often triggered unconsciously, based on the counsellor's own personal experiences, biases, and unresolved issues. It can influence the way we perceive and interact with our students, potentially hindering our ability to provide effective support. For example, a student’s traumatic issues can remind a counsellor of their own distressing memories. Or a challenging student’s behaviours may clash with a counsellor’s world views. Recognising countertransference is an important step towards creating a healthier therapeutic relationship.
As school counsellors, it's important to be attuned to our emotions and reactions during sessions. Signs of countertransference might include feeling overly protective, angry, frustrated, or overly invested in a student's situation. These emotional reactions can be a signal that our own unresolved issues are affecting our professional judgment.
Impact on Student-Counsellor Relationship
Whatever the trigger, countertransference causes the counsellor’s feelings to shift the focus inward versus remaining understandingly centred on the client’s well-being. Some common reactions include over-engaging with favourite clients, withdrawing from difficult ones, frustration, excessive nurturing, anger, and even dependency on affirmation from clients. Left unaddressed, countertransference can negatively impact our work and boundaries. Students may sense our biases or emotional responses, which can hinder their willingness to open up and seek guidance. It's our responsibility to create a safe and unbiased environment for students to share their concerns. That’s why raising awareness of these dynamics is so essential for school counsellors through ongoing self-evaluation and clinical supervision.
Examples in School Settings
As a school counsellor, you may experience intense countertransference during sessions with students grappling with issues like bullying, learning disabilities, abusive home environments or social anxiety. A bullying victim’s trauma could unconsciously echo your own childhood wounds of feeling unsafe, triggering sudden overprotection. Alternatively, you might feel unusually frustrated with a demanding student’s resistance to your suggestions due to reminding you of personality clashes with a parent, sibling or prior client. A teen who ignores your best advice may subconsciously irk biases about difficult students being “ungrateful.”
Noticing when your reactions flow from students’ issues versus your associations prevents projecting inward dispositions onto these children’s needs. Their vulnerability warrants consistency and clarity from caregivers. Recording feelings after sessions, discussing dynamics in supervision and taking self-care breaks restores equilibrium needed to serve students with compassion.
Strategies for Managing Countertransference:
1. Self-awareness: Regularly reflect on your emotional reactions and biases. Self-awareness is the foundation for addressing countertransference effectively.
2. Clinical Supervision: Engage in supervision sessions. Discussing challenging cases can provide valuable insights and guidance.
3. Personal Therapy: Seeking your own therapy can help address personal issues that might be activating countertransference.
4. Mindfulness and Self-care: Incorporate mindfulness techniques and self-care practices into your routine to manage your own emotional well-being.
5. Continuing Education: Stay updated with the research and training on counselling techniques to enhance your skills and understanding.
As counsellors gain deeper insight around their own vulnerabilities, activators, and needs for self-work, they simultaneously build capacity to remain present and tuned into the client’s needs with less inward distraction.
Final thoughts
As school counsellors, our commitment to our students' well-being requires us to continuously work on our own emotional and personal development. By understanding and addressing countertransference, we can create a more empathetic, supportive, and effective environment for our students to thrive. Acknowledging our own emotions is a stepping stone to becoming the best counsellors we can be. Broadening awareness around countertransference deepens capacity for resonance, trust and healing - helping convert counselling spaces into sanctuaries protecting our children’s wellness through turbulent times.