Review Of Kottler's Book 'On Being A Therapist'

vIn his book On Being a Therapist, Kottler (as cited in Wicks, 2008, pg. 29) stated “Never mind that we catch our clients’ colds and flus, what about their pessimism, negativity…. Words creep back to haunt us. Those silence screams remain deafening.” While present and creating space for healing, social workers and other workers in helping fields can become present to pessimism and negativity as well as woes and traumatic stories. To better understand the impact that being present to client’s difficulties impacts social workers; we will examine the impact of the following constructs on the clinician and the therapeutic relationship: countertransference, burnout, secondary trauma, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue Countertransference can best be described as reactions which a clinician has for the client they are working with, in the moment, which creates the potential for the clinician to respond to a client in non-productive manner. Countertransference can be based upon the clinician’s past or present experiences, personal beliefs, values, and automatic thoughts (Hafkenscheid, 2005). Countertransference and transference has the potential to create stress for the clinician and client as it can splinter the therapeutic
When countertransference, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue progress; secondary traumatic stress can occur. Clinicians who find themselves having nightmares or being sucked into recurring thoughts about clients’ trauma may be experiencing a STS response. A STS response can mimic a traumatic stress response and can vary in severity. A STS response can keep the clinician from being fully engaged with clients and, in a worst case scenario, could create a scenario where the clinician re-traumatizes client’s by being unable to effectively help them cope and remain safe during