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| Photo by Rick Hustead |
This is dialog from a scene in the
1996 film Twister, in which
two tornado chasers discuss filing for divorce.
Billy Harding, introducing his new
fiancée to his estranged wife, Jo: “She’s a therapist.”
Jo Harding: “Yours?”
In my blog titled, My
New Office, I explain how the furniture in this space is positioned to prevent
my (the hypnotherapist) invading a client’s space. Many people are initially
nervous and wary about hypnosis the first time they come in for a session,
including those who are seeking hypnotherapy as a “last resort” to overcome an
unwanted behavior. Furthermore, characteristics such as the person’s suggestibility
and their Emotional
and Physical sexuality (personality) may require greater physical distance
between us during the therapy.
It is also important to maintain a professional boundary between the hypnotherapist
and his or her clients. By this I mean that the therapist must separate (and
keep separate) his or her personal life and interests from the client’s. It is
not uncommon for clients to start to feel similar emotions for the therapist
that they already carry for someone in their own life to their therapist during
the hypnotherapeutic process. Or, the person may develop strong feelings for
the therapist that have nothing to do with those he or she has for a
significant other at home. This phenomenon is called transference. With
the client already highly suggestible to the hypnotherapist, it is easy to see
how this can occur.
Counter-transference is the phenomenon in which a therapist
reciprocates the client’s feelings/emotions. Like the client, these feelings for
the other person can be negative or positive. The conflict arises when the professional
can no longer provide effective hypnotherapy for the client because these
strong emotions erode the ethical parameters of this professional relationship.
Whether the therapist has become unable to provide unconditional positive
regard for the client or has become too emotionally and/or socially involved
with the person outside the therapy setting, the therapeutic relationship is untenable
and should be ended.
The scene I quoted at the beginning of this essay illustrates this
conflict of interest. Billy Harding does not explicitly say that he met his new
girlfriend because she was his therapist when his marriage to Jo started to break
down. In addition to the fact that this kind of secondary relationship is
unethical and unacceptable in the context of their therapeutic relationship, it
also makes the new couple’s partnership potentially more fragile. It could be
argued that Billy took the unrequited emotions he still carried for his
estranged wife and transferred them onto his therapist. The therapist then
broke a golden rule of therapy and got romantically involved with her client. Regardless
of the emotional bond they shared outside of the relationship, they sacrificed
the progress of the emotional “work” Billy had been doing in his therapist’s
office up to that point. His feelings for his soon-to-be ex-wife did not get
resolved enough to stand up to the real-world challenge of asking Jo to sign
divorce papers to officially, finally ending their marriage.
To prevent transference and counter-transference in my hypnotherapy
practice, it is important to establish strong professional boundaries around
the therapeutic relationship that the hypnotherapist shares with a client. The
hypnotherapist’s role in a client’s life is to use tools such as hypnosis and
guided imagery to help the individual achieve vocational or avocational self-improvement goals,
not to become that person’s new best
friend, dog-walker or spouse.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist
based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation
Institute in 2005. For more
information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an
appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2016
