Every counsellor has had a client who stirs something up — irritation you can’t quite explain, a pull to rescue, a flicker of boredom or dread before a session. It’s easy to read those reactions as a sign you’re doing something wrong, and so they often go unmentioned. That silence is exactly what makes countertransference one of the most worthwhile things to bring to supervision.
What countertransference is
In broad terms, countertransference describes the emotional, cognitive and behavioural responses a therapist has when working with a client. A recent review of managing it in supervision describes how these reactions can reveal useful information about the client and the relational patterns they bring — and how, when they go unrecognised or unmanaged, they can stall progress and strain the therapeutic alliance.
Why counsellors avoid raising it
- It can feel like admitting a flaw — as though a strong reaction means you’re not professional enough.
- Some reactions are uncomfortable to say out loud: dislike of a client, attraction, boredom, or relief when a session is cancelled.
- Without a trusting relationship with your supervisor, it’s hard to know whether it’s safe to be that honest.
The paper’s own starting point is the opposite: supervisors can help by normalising countertransference as a natural phenomenon rather than a personal failure. Supervision is one of the few places in this work where that honesty is the point.
What supervision can do with it
According to the same review, supervisors can help supervisees notice and work with these reactions through approaches such as:
- Education — understanding that having reactions is expected, not a failing.
- Guided questioning to identify the thoughts and feelings that arose in a session.
- Examining the thinking patterns behind a reaction to a particular client.
- Imagery and role-play to revisit a moment in a session and the response it triggered.
- Self-reflection — paying systematic attention to thoughts, feelings and body sensations during sessions.
Borders and Brown’s widely used framework for supervision content also places a counsellor’s self-awareness and interpersonal dynamics, including transference and countertransference, among the core areas supervision addresses — so this is squarely within what you’re there to do.
(Borders, L. D., & Brown, L. L. (2005). The New Handbook of Counseling Supervision. Lahaska Press/Routledge.)
How to raise it
- Start with what you noticed, not a conclusion: “I felt flat every time this client mentioned their partner” is plenty to work with.
- Bring the reaction before the session it affects, rather than after something has gone wrong.
- Notice patterns — clients you dread, clients you can’t stop thinking about, or clients you keep wanting to fix.
- If a reaction feels connected to your own history, it’s reasonable to flag that; that’s also where personal therapy can sit alongside supervision.
Getting started
In the STEP-UP model I use, this work sits across TRACK and EDUCATE (reviewing what happened in sessions, interpreting significant events) and self-care. If there’s a client you’ve been quietly carrying and haven’t known how to raise, get in touch.
You can reach me here, or fill in the supervision enquiry form below.