The Conductor’s Self-disclosure of Negative Countertransference in Group Analytic Psychotherapy

Introduction

In this article, I would like to present a weekly group analytic group that has been on-going for two years and includes six participants: two men and four women aged 30 to 65. The following descriptions refer to two consecutive sessions.

The group was talking about funerals and loss, but in a way that seemed emotionally detached to me and I shared my impression with the group. Dan said that the discussion of loss made him wish he could be more daring in his life and start his own business. I asked the group whether this theme of fear of missing opportunities and the wish to dare more was relevant to anyone else.

Dina, who was successful in her professional life but complained about long-lasting loneliness in her social life was about to leave the group for three months due to a short relocation abroad. She shared with the group her desire to leave now, earlier than she had intended, instead of waiting for the formal date of the relocation. The reason was her workload before the trip, as well as her feeling that the group was stuck.

At this point, Dan jumped in and said that he wanted to leave the group since he was tired of being in therapy, and he asked the group not to try to talk him out of it; however, he did ask for the opinion of the group on this matter. Dan was a dominant participant; a talented man in his 40s, who had a difficult time holding down a job, a problem that was never worked through since he came from a wealthy family. However, in the past year, he had managed to remain in one workplace. It seemed that the group helped him with this matter and we all saw it as an accomplishment. However, Dan’s difficulties were expressed in the group through his patterns of attendance: he was absent at least once a month. My previous attempts to invite Dan and the group to address this issue did not elicit any significant material. Dan explained that his absences were due to constraints and the group seemed to be afraid of confrontation with Dan, who was warm and charismatic, on the one hand, and sometimes aggressive, on the other.

I connected Dan’s history of loss (he lost his mother when he was 12) to his fear of experiencing abandonment in the group. I suggested that he was behaving his intention to abandon, whereas inside he was afraid of being abandoned. However, my interpretation did not lead to any insight or change in behaviour. Every Tuesday morning (the day of the group), I expected Dan’s text telling me that he might not show up and I was filled with feelings of anxiety and anger. The group reacted to Dina’s decision with both sadness and understanding. No one said anything to Dan, and no one initiated an exploration of Dina’s decision. I said that I was surprised that there was no exploration of Dina’s and Dan’s announcements.

Lin, an introverted, clever woman, who was struggling with a conflict between a desire to be heard and fear of rejection, said that she that felt that Dan was abusing her emotions, since he had announced his intention of leaving the group so many times before. The other members were quiet. I reminded the group that we were talking about courage before, and invited them to speak openly about their experiences in the here and now. Lin said that she wanted to reach out to Dan but his attitude made her withdraw. No one else joined her candour and silence fell for a long time.

Feeling how the silence of the group was charged with powerful emotions, I decided to disclose some of my countertransference. I shared with Dan and the group that I felt hurt by Dan’s behaviour and that I was angry with him, since I felt that he pushed me away and prevented me and the group from relating to him. I also said that his pattern of inconsistent attendance made me feel insecure about his presence in the group and the strength of our relationship. Dan was stunned and tears were building up in his eyes. Oren was shocked to see Dan’s tears; he said that he had always adored Dan for his courage to ignore other people’s feelings and act on his own needs, but now he understood that Dan needed other people’s reassurance just like everyone else. Shelly and Ziva, who were new to the group remained quiet and seemed intimidated by the aggressive dialogue taking place. Dan said, angrily, that he was not an egocentric man and that he wanted to go home now. Lin looked terrified and tried to calm the situation by telling Dan that she knew that he was not a self-centred person. I asked the group and Dan how they felt about what I had said to Dan. Lin and Dina thought that it was courageous of me and said that it inspired them to speak openheartedly. Oren shared a memory about his mother that used to yell at him when he was crying and explained that he was stunned by Dan’s tears that reminded him of himself. Shelly and Ziva remained quiet. It seemed to me that the group was struggling with a desire to voice their needs and wishes without expressing concern for other people.

In our ‘hall of mirrors’ (Foulkes, 1964), Dan represented the freedom to act on his own wishes, which was viewed as strength, whereas, Oren represented selflessness, which he and the group experienced as weakness. In this moment, Oren realized that it was not possible to be both self-centred and compassionate for others at the same time and that each of those positions carried with it responsibility.

After a few minutes, Dina resonated and shared with the group a story of how she confronted her daughter’s teacher and proved to herself that she could express herself decisively and still maintain close and meaningful relationships. Dina gave the group credit for their contribution to her accomplishment, but was very certain about her decision to leave the group earlier. I felt that Dina needed to express her assertiveness with me as well, and I shared this observation of mine with the group.

In the next session, Dan spoke first and said that he felt hurt and angry with me and the group. He said that I hurt his feelings because I said that he was self-centred and the group hurt him because they ignored his request for feedback. Lin told Dan that she felt close to him that day, because he had the courage to reveal his vulnerability. Shelly said that the way Dan presented his decision in the previous session made her feel that we were not important enough for him to discuss the decision with us. Ziva said that she was afraid of the increasing the level of conflict in the group. I offered Dan the option of staying for six more months, in order to explore his patterns and examine their possible connection to his vision of starting his own business. Dan stayed in the group for six more months. Soon after this session, Dina left the group, feeling proud of her self, and she returned to the group when the relocation was over.

I have vast experience with self-disclosure as an individual therapist, but until this point, I had not disclosed my negative countertransference in the group. I would like to posit that the conductor’s self-disclosure of his negative countertransference is a powerful intervention that can promote the ability of the group to own and process emotions, especially when coping with projective identification that causes a therapeutic impasse. This function should be developed as one of the skills of the group, but in my view, it is always one of the conductor’s functions. In order to support these arguments, I will first review countertransference and projective identification from the group-analytic point of view.

Countertransference and Projective Identification—the Group Analytic Perspective

According to Foulkes (in Prodgers, 1991), the group conductor experiences countertransference. Whereas Foulkes did not disagree with Freud overtly, his descriptions of the process are closer to those of intersubjective theories. He believed that the conductor and participants are involved in processes of mutual influence. The conductor projects parts of himself into the participants and they project into him. The conductor’s emotions are indicative of his ‘blind spots’ but also of the participants’ internal world.

Foulkes did not write separately about ‘projective identification’. Projective identification is a prevalent process in groups, which can be destructive unless identified. Alternately, this process can be facilitative and constitute an opportunity to access material that cannot be expressed with words (Rogers, 1987). The object of projective identification in the group can be the conductor, a single participant (Friedman, 2015) or the group as a whole. Ganzarian (in Rafaelsen, 1996) describes the concept of ‘role-suction’, spokesman and scapegoat as expressions of projective identification. Those roles can be understood as nodal points between the individual and the group (Rafaelsen, 1996).

I agree that the group and the conductor influence each other, and that emotional events in the group are better described by enactment than by one directional processes like countertransference and projective identification. Nevertheless I will use those terms in order to emphasize the important function of the conductor in containing and processing the group’s unbearable emotions.

The Conductor’s Self-disclosure—Literature Review

The very nature of therapy means that the therapist is always exposed. This is called unintentional self-disclosure. This article will refer to intentional self-disclosure. It includes the disclosure of the following themes: associations to a patient’s dream, a therapist’s dilemma as to how to approach given issue, details about the therapist’s life, and disclosure of countertransference in the ‘here and now’ or outside the consulting room (Aron, 1996).

Aron (1996) described the classifications of the therapist’s self-disclosure: was it the therapist or patient who initiated the disclosure; the disclosure’s content; was it negative or positive emotion; and was it disclosure of countertransference or of details from the therapist’s personal life? In the literature on individual therapy, we find different voices regarding the effectiveness of disclosing details from the therapist’s life. Aron discloses details from his life and his countertransference as well. Maroda (in Aron, 1996) prefers self-disclosure of countertransference only, as does Renik, who prefers to define it as the disclosure of all that concerns the process in the analyst’s view. Yalom (2005) stresses the contribution of the conductor’s disclosure of his emotions in the ‘here and now’ of the group. In this article, I will focus on the conductor’s intentional self-disclosure of his countertransference feelings.

I will now describe the potential contributions of the disclosure of the conductor’s countertransference: This disclosure could emphasize the real aspects of the conductor’s personality, as opposed to transference related aspects (Yalom, 2005; Cohen and Schermer, 2001).

Cohen and Schermer (2001) advise that the conductor will move between two positions: the immanent conductor who engages in self-disclosure to express his emotional involvement, and the transcendent, professional conductor, who does not engage in self-disclosure. It seems that they believe that moving between the two different positions can be fully controlled by the therapist.

Billow (2011) argues that the group leader’s self-disclosure constitutes an expression of taking responsibility over his influence. Responsibility taking serves as modelling for the group members. In contrast to Cohen and Schermer (2001) Billow emphasizes the unconscious nature of the leader’s participation and holds that awareness is only accessible in hindsight and sometimes is impossible without the group’s input. Grossmark (2012) and Billow agree that the leader’s self-disclosure is an expression of his strong emotional involvement, but believe that it is not its single expression. Grossmark (2015) told a group he conducted a dream that he had about the group, but does not describe its influence on the group. He (2015) believes that in order to allow the conductor and participants to access dissociated experiences, it is important for the group as a whole to be in a state of emotional involvement. Even the conductor’s invitation to explore relationships in the group can imply withdrawal from emotional involvement. Grossmark (2007) claims that the conductor’s self-disclosure cannot contribute in times of enactments and warns the conductor not to use self-disclosure as a way of evacuating his difficult emotions instead of containing them. In this article I will offer a different point a view in which the conductor’s self-disclosure can offer a way out for the group in times of therapeutic impasse.

Timing of Self-disclosure

Yalom (2005) and Cohen and Schermer (2001) warn against the conductor’s self-disclosure in a too early phase of the group life, in which participants still need to idealize the conductor.

In the course of a training programme for psychoanalytically oriented group psychotherapists, the group communicated, through several participants, that the class was bored. Despite my attempts to tailor the class to their needs, the criticism recurred and I was left with feelings of worthlessness and failure. I understood the aggression directed at me as expressing anxiety about the group task—their practicum as group conductors, which they would begin the following year.

At the same time, I felt my eagerness to succeed with this group. So far, I have had a profound and mostly positive experience of teaching, but this was a new group in a new institute and I was afraid of disappointing myself and my employer. One of the participants volunteered to conduct the group as a part of a ‘fish ball’ simulation. I ‘forgot’ to allow the group to offer him feedback. He was hurt and shared this with the group. I thought about my amnesia as a missed opportunity to empower this participant. I interpreted the group complaints as an expression of the ‘dependency basic assumption’ (Bion, 1961) and I asked myself how I contributed to its emergence. Now, we were all entangled in a fear of failure. I was unsure as to whether I should disclose my feelings to the group. I felt that they needed to check how much of their aggression I could handle without getting destroyed. I thought the group as a whole was entangled in an almost unanimous projective identification; Therefore, I had a difficult time turning to other participants, as advised by Rogers (1987) and Grossmark (2015).

I offered the participants an interpretation; I told them that they had a strong fear of failing as conductors. Some of them identified with the interpretation, and for a few minutes, some of them engaged in conversation about their anxieties and fears.

In the last class, which focused on countertransference, I decided to disclose some of my feelings, and told them that there were moments in which I felt that I failed as a lecturer. I felt that now they had a lesser need for idealization and therefore, my self-disclosure could be contributing. Following my disclosure, some of the participants shared their school experiences, expressing feelings of failure and of being outsiders. The shame of not succeeding at school was intolerable and thus was presented as ‘boredom’. Almost all the group participated in the intimate and insightful discourse. It seemed that the disclosure of my countertransference as a conductor with the right timing encouraged them to take responsibility over their emotions (Billow, 2011), discouraged projections and facilitated personal discussion between us.

In conclusion, the literature recommends engaging in self-disclosure only when the group’s need to idealize the conductor decreases. Saravay (1973) stresses the rebellion phase as this phase. The case which I have described supports this suggestion and shows its relevance in short term processes as well.

Disclosure of Negative Countertransference

Racker (1968) described concordant and complementary identification. Concordant identification is the therapist’s identification with the patient’s ego, whereas complementary identification is the therapist’s identification with internal object representations. This identification can represent the therapist’s identification with other people in the patient’s life. Winnicott (1949) argued that the therapist’s hatred of the patient is related to the devotion demanded of him, and that it involves also ‘objective hate’ resulting from characteristics unique to the patient. Foulkes (in Prodgers, 1991) whose ideas preceded the inter-subjective writers in this sense realized the conductor and the group influence each other. The clinical example in which I shared my negative emotions to Dan could be explained as my vulnerability to rejection and separation and at the same time as a reaction to the usage of projective identification in the group.

However, it seems that self-disclosure of negative feelings for the individual patient or group received limited attention in the literature.

Bion (1973) emphasized the idea that acquiring psychological knowledge involves psychic pain that in my opinion underlies the difficulty to disclose negative countertransference to the patient and might explain the limited discussion of this issue: ‘in every consulting room, there ought to be rather two frightened people . . . if they are not both frightened, one wonders why they are bothering to find out what everyone knows’ (Bion, 1973: 5). Aron (2006) stresses the necessity of disclosing negative countertransference in situations of therapeutic impasse. He suggests that certain forms of self-disclosure are best understood as attempts to create a third point of reference that facilitates the gradual transformation from complementary to mutual relations. When the therapist feels that his self-disclosure of countertransference will ‘suppress’ the patient, whereas his avoidance of the disclosure will ‘suppress’ the therapist, he can share his conflict with the patient.

Mermelstein (2000) adds that most therapeutic impasses can be explained as therapists’ denial of negative countertransference that is misinterpreted as lack of empathy for the patient.

Disclosure of negative countertransference also facilitates mature separateness, leading the participants and conductor to own their emotions and behaviour (Winnicott, 1949; Symington, 1983).

I claim that in group work, when the conductor discloses his negative countertransference it is especially important to pay attention to the group’s maturity.

Spontaneous Self-disclosure, as opposed to Judicious Self-disclosure

When the group has matured and it seems that the conductor’s disclosure can be contributive, there is yet another question that should be addressed: Should the conductor be spontaneous in the disclosure of his emotions or should the disclosure be judicious?

This question was predominantly discussed in the context of individual therapy, but its exploration can have implications for group therapy as well. Mitchell (1998) is careful and recommends self-disclosure only in an already established relationship with the patient, which allows prior evaluation of the disclosure’s possible contribution. In a moving article, he shared a memory of his mother’s death. This memory emerged in the treatment of two patients. Mitchell chose to disclose the memory to the old-timer patient and not to the new patient. In contrast, Bromberg (1993) warns against disclosure that aims to describe the conductor in a positive way and stresses that only a spontaneous self-disclosure is genuine and thus constitutes a meaningful self-disclosure. I agree with Bromberg that the genuineness of the conductor’s self-disclosure is important. Nevertheless, I posit that this can also be achieved by the therapist’s working through of the countertransference and that spontaneity does not guarantee an authentic disclosure. Moreover, I believe that spontaneous self-disclosure can sometimes reflect acting out of the countertransference. In the abovementioned example, I was conscious of my growing insult and anger towards Dan a long time before I decided to share this to the group. Nevertheless, the disclosure of my feelings occurred in a spontaneous association to my feeling of impasse in the group, which Dina described as ‘the group is stuck’.

I would like to suggest that countertransference can be worked through and then disclosed before the group in a spontaneous way, so that spontaneous and judicious disclosures can be considered as two poles of a continuum and not as two separate categories. At the same time, because of the heterogeneous nature of the group, even such preparation cannot guarantee how it will be experienced by the participants.

Self-disclosure of the Conductor’s Countertransference in View of Projective Identification

In this section, I will describe how the conductor’s self-disclosure of negative countertransference can contribute to the working through of therapeutic impasses in situations of massive use of projective identification. Rogers (1987) believes that projective identification is a normal communicative process and a pathological process in the group. She claims that massive use of projective identification represents a dependency situation in the group life, in which the participants do not feel that they own their emotions and expect someone else to process them. Rogers (1987) recommends the conductor to reflect on this defence and she does not advise interpretation in these situations. She does not refer to the conductor’s self-disclosure.

Maroda (1999) believes that the therapist’s self-disclosure of his countertransference feelings is essential for everyone and claims that psychoanalytic literature overestimates containment and neglects the subject of the therapist’s expression of his feelings. Maroda (1999) relates to individual therapy, but her ideas can be applied to groups as well. She holds that children who grow up with caregivers that had a difficult time expressing emotion will have a difficult time identifying and regulating emotions and thus, will overuse projective identification. The therapist’s self-disclosure of his emotions addresses the patient’s need for using emotional language—the development of which has suffered. Interpretation might not work because it does not address the impairment in emotional language and can be experienced as intellectual and distancing. Aron (1996) views the therapist’s self-disclosure as a type of interpretation, but following Bromberg (1994), I prefer to define them as two different interventions. This discussion awaits further development; however, it is beyond the scope of this article.

Bromberg (1993) agrees with Maroda that an emotional response from the therapist is important, but he offers a different explanation for this need. He claims that children who experienced consistent denial of their emotional experiences will have dissociated self-states. This process is normal, unless it is a massive one. For example, when a child expresses sadness and this experience is consistently unrecognized, this self- state will dissociate. Self-states are like ‘separate’ personalities with needs, motivations and memories, their content is not symbolized and has not reached consciousness.

Bromberg (1993) believed that when working with dissociative states, interpretations fail, because they communicate an intellectual and not an emotional message. Interpretation can be experienced as an attempt to correct ‘the patient’s truth’, whereas the therapist’s self-disclosure is an attempt to get closer to his world and to get to know dissociated self-states. Grossmark (2015), who applied Bromberg’s ideas in the group realm, claims that at the time of enactment, even the invitation to explore the relationship in the group can be experienced as intellectual and that the conductor should be in touch with his feelings without denying them or acting them out. He describes an enactment which, following an aggressive attack by one of the participants, he felt strong devaluation himself. It seemed that the group contained only two self-states: those of victim and aggressor. Grossmark approached one of the participants, whose sharing initiated an emotional conversation in the group, which in turn, allowed the emergence of multiple self-states in the group. Grossmark (2012) stresses the conductor’s emotional involvement as a far more important factor than interpretation, as well the group’s contribution to the working through of the enactment.

I would like to emphasize the conductor’s self-disclosure of countertransference feelings as an emotional intervention that contributes to the working through of therapeutic impasses. I agree with Maroda (1999) and Bromberg (1993) that an emotional response on the conductor’s part is essential when facing the massive use of projective identification and in the face of limited self-states in the group. I believe that the conductor’s self-disclosure of his countertransference feelings contribute to the group’s growing ability for processing and owning emotions. This function should be developed as one of the skills of the group, but in my view, it is always one of the functions of the conductor.

In the example above, I assumed that Dan was using projective identification. His inconsistent attendance to the group was experienced by me and the group as a threat to abandon us, while unconsciously, he feared abandonment. My transference interpretations failed, since they revealed the unconscious emotion that was unbearable for Dan and thus, he was not ready to own it. My invitation to the group to explore the relationship was of small contribution as well. We were all trapped in an impasse: the ‘free floating discussion’ (Foulkes, 1948) had ceased and the group could barely reflect. The emotional state of the group was rigid and the dominant emotions were insult and anger. Relationships in the group were experienced in a rigid and limited way: the group viewed concern as a weakness and lack of concern as strength.

I view my self-disclosure before Dan as a turning point in the session. After my self-disclosure, Oren became aware of his mirror reaction to Dan (Foulkes, 1948). Oren projected his desire for selfishness on Dan and adored him. He idealized Dan for his self-centredness and they both ignored the fact that Dan’s behaviour could hurt people’s feelings. When he faced Dan’s reaction to my disclosure, he became aware of the fact that every choice involves responsibility. Following my disclosure to Dan, Oren realized that his concern for others was not a weakness and he was able to experience Dan in a more integrative way. Dina showed the group that assertiveness was not a threat to relationships. Her voice represented the possibility for ‘work group’ (Bion, 1961) that showed that owning emotion and taking responsibility for one’s behaviour is valuable, as opposed to Dan, who represented the ‘fight or flight’ basic assumption (Bion, 1961).

In terms of self-states in the group, following my self-disclosure, we could experience multiple self-states: self-states of closeness and pride, assertiveness and appreciation.

In sum, I propose that the conductor’s self-disclosure of negative countertransference can allow for a successful working through of therapeutic impasses in the group, which are caused by massive use of projective identification. While the conductor’s self-disclosure was aimed at a specific member of the group, it can elicit therapeutic changes in other members of the group as well (Cohen and Schermer, 2001).

Discussion

The conductor’s self-disclosure of countertransference has so far received little attention in group analytic literature. This unintentional disclosure is an interesting finding that should be addressed.

I have attempted to review and develop the rich and intriguing discussion of this subject. I see this article as my self-disclosure that I hope will develop a further discussion of this issue. Aron (1996) and Grossmark (2007) remind us that the conductor’s self-disclosure should be introduced in the spirit of inquiry and curiosity, and that perception in any moment in time is one of many possibilities and not an absolute ‘truth’.