Using Transference and Counter-transference to Decode Clients’ Unconscious Communication – with Dr Ruth Birkebaek

Using Transference and Counter-transference to Decode Clients’ Unconscious Communication

We all have ‘challenging’ clients with whom we feel stuck and uncomfortable. They speak too much or too little; they seem ‘resistant’ and mistrusting; they cannot make contact with their own feelings; they may have very little psychological insight; and some of them claim to have no memories of their own childhood. No technique or method seems to be helpful when working with these clients. As therapists, such clients may challenge our own capacity to stay empathic; they may trigger our own script beliefs, “I’m not good enough”; and feelings of frustration, helplessness or hopelessness.

These clients stimulate us to think about several questions:

• How do we make therapeutic contact with them?
• How can we create a healing therapeutic relationship with them?
• How can we use our countertransference to help our ‘challenging’ clients ?

In this workshop Ruth will discuss how therapists can decode client’s stories that are entrenched and embedded in their own bodies. Ruth will also explore clients’ unconscious communication through the transference with the therapist and the transference of everyday life. This workshop will be useful to psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists who want to enhance their effectiveness in working relationally.

At this training day participants will:

• Understand the various ways clients unconsciously communicate their stories
• Learn how to listen to clients’ stories through their transference and unconscious relational patterns
• Learn how to decode the stories hidden in client’ sense of emptiness, physiological symptoms, absence or exaggeration of affect and repetitive words
• Learn how to create a language to name the unnamed and help clients communicate their life experience.

Through lecture, case discussions and live therapy demonstration, this workshop will focus on the significance of a contactful and involved therapeutic relationship.

About Ruth Birkebaek.

Dr Ruth Birkebaek is a Relational and Integrative Psychotherapy Trainer and Supervisor, having trained for 5 years with Richard Erskine. Additionally, Ruth has trained in Psychosomatic Medicine, Jung Therapy and Transactional Analysis. Ruth started her career in Brazil in 1989 as a Plastic Surgeon. After graduating from medical school she became interested in the impact of the mind on the development of physical illness. She now works full time as a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice in London, and delivers trainings in Relational Integrative Psychotherapy and Transactional Analysis. Ruth is a UKCP registered Psychotherapist, a Certified Integrative Psychotherapy Trainer & Supervisor (CIIPTS) by the IIPA (International Integrative Psychotherapy Association) and a Certified Transactional Analyst – Provisional Trainer & Supervisor (PTSTA).

Feedback about Ruth from our previous events

Open to psychological therapists (including trainees) from all modalities and health professionals.

CPD certificates supplied. Complimentary refreshments included but not lunch or parking. 

The vast majority of our professional CPD events are led by psychotherapists. Each delegate is responsible for self-care should material during the event trigger difficult personal feelings.