Transference and Countertransference...

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Regarding therapy

Can anyone explain this to me or even be able to give examples.

Thank you

Carl Jung talks about transference here and illustrates with a very interesting example:

Thank you both.

In laymens terms tranference is seeing your therapist like a parent or other significant person who has influenced you in life. You might do this with your doctor or teacher.
It is a professional relationship but we can't help but allow our past feelings and thoughts that make us feel this /previous connection. So we act like they are that person.
I might see my doctor as an all knowing authority figure - at an extreme I might be sexually attracted to him.
It could be a female nurse looking after me and she feels like my nan did and I want her to hug me and tell me everthing is going to be ok.

Countertransference is the opposite with the therapist/doctor/teacher having certain thoughts feelings emotions towards the person they are helping.
Therapist might get overinvolved and protective towards the client.
Nurse might give patient special treatment and spend more time with patient.
Doctor might feel angry or frustrated towards a patient.

These concepts are more complex than this but it can happen within any relationship.

Thank you for that. I was just wondering if I do this sort of thing when I see my therapist but then I haven't really had that sort of relationship with a parent or anyone in my life that I can transfer things from.

I actually see him in a kind of social worker or probation officer role. They're the closest things to parental figures I can relate to in my life.

Well yeah but I can't remember relating to them in any way. I was in care for a while and just passed around a lot.

It can be any influential figure in your life, any kind of care giver from any time in your life.

The transference can be conscious or unconscious or both. You might realise you are doing it or not. And you are influenced from birth, if not before.

We have many influences in life which help to shape us, too much happens in our lives to be able to remember much of it at all.

Only some therapists work with transference. Quite a few don't. Depends what approach they work in. Psychoanalytical work with it, but there are too many kinds of therapy these days.

Quite often people remind us of someone from our past and you don't have to call it anything. It can give us a positive or negative bias. This is why self awareness and emotional intelligence is very helpful for us in our relationships.

What is important in life is if we feel loved and respected by others, empathy and compassion. This is what helps to regulate and heal us. The feedback we get is nourishment.

Yeah so when I ask my T am I doing well then that's like kind of transference because I'm looking for a bit of reassurance from him.

Could well be.
You might ask your therapist this if you feel like it is right for you.
I have a feeling they might ask you how you think you are doing lol.
They will want to empower you to know yourself how you are doing or they might show you a bit of a deeper side to their humanity. Who knows where it could lead?

Oh I already told him that I feel like it's working.

Are you interested in the subject as a whole, like counselling, phsychology, theory, practise etc.

Or just transference?

No it was just that.