Assignment: The psychodynamic concepts

Assignment: The psychodynamic concepts

Colleague 2: Tiffany

Why transference and countertransference are so common when working with children. Then, identify some strategies you might use to address both transference and countertransference in your work with children.

Informed practice based on the psychodynamic concepts such as transference and counter-transference can be very helpful as they provide invaluable insights into the world of children as well as into our own inner world as social workers.

Author Ariola Vishnja Zjarri states that using psychodynamic concepts such as transference and counter-transference as well as an understanding of projection can aid social workers in our work with young people, but while it is helpful it also presents us with difficulties. It can be helpful for the children if we, the social workers, become aware of the transference feelings which flow to and from between the child and the worker which results in us providing more informed and sensitive support to the child. At the same time, it can be difficult because engaging with young people in this way involves a lot of searching and sometimes painful introspection and self-containment for the worker. It demands that we receive skilled supervision and management, and requires insightful supervision and skilled management to help us deal with our feelings as well as with those of the child. Most importantly it helps us understand that we don’t always have to stomp a foot down every time we sense there is a possibility of losing control of the child. A knowledge and awareness of transference in our work can assure us that we can emotionally contain situations without recourse to drastic action because we understand that by not acting on transferred feelings, but rather by acknowledging them we can help a child explore their behavior and feelings with us by comparing their  feelings from the past with their current reality.

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Reference

Zjarri, Ariola Vishnja. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/the-journal/transference-and-counter-transference-their-therapeutic-value-in-residential-work-with-young-people/