The Analyst’s Torment: Unbearable Mental States in Countertransference (Online Presentation)

2 CE Credits for Psychoanalysts, Psychologists, and Social Workers

In contrast to exploring the patient's mind from a safe distance, the clinician’s feelings, subjective experiences, and history all impact the intersubjective space of the therapeutic encounter. Thus, the analyst’s authentic self-exploration is a vital part of the work. Shah explores how the analyst’s uncomfortable and disowned emotions are inevitably entangled with the therapeutic process and have the potential to derail or facilitate it. Specific emotional/mental states that cause therapists to stop listening and struggle in the face of uncertainty and intensity will be explored in detail, including dread, arrogance, dissociation, and shame. The analyst’s capacity to experience and work with these states is vital to understanding and metabolizing patients' emotional experiences and maintaining an ethical and therapeutic stance.

Dhwani Shah is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst currently practicing in Princeton, NJ.  He is a clinical associate faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a faculty member at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.  He has authored articles on topics ranging from neuroscience and mood disorders to psychoanalysis.  His book, The Analyst’s Torment: Unbearable Mental States in Countertransference (Phoenix, 2022), was featured in Brett Kahr’s “Top Ten Books of 2022."

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