Webinar - Transference and countertransference: Training for agency-based mental health professionals

Transference and countertransference: Training for agency-based mental health professionals

Presented by SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health Learning Institute

Date: July 12, 2021 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Facilitator: Natalie Zlodre, MSW, RSW

This training is suitable for:
Mental Health Professionals: psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers.
Medical Professionals: nurses, psychiatrists, family doctors.
Direct Service Workers: drop in workers, shelter and hostel workers.

Level of training: Introductory

Client age category: For professionals who work with clients over the age of 18.

COVID-19 related content: Although not a primary focus of this training, a review of the connection of how clients experience of managing the COVID-19 pandemic may be linked to state dependent recall (emotional flashbacks) and how this dynamic can create and intensify transference and countertransference dynamics.

Description: Trauma that is unhealed, unresolved and unintegrated into a healthy balance within the self has the potential to be repeated, reenacted, acted out, projected or externalized in relationships.

Working with human suffering on a daily basis and being sensitive to the despair, frustration and fear embodied in our clients is an integral aspect of our work. In order to be effective we need to be aware of our clients and our own unconscious self-protective reactions (transference/projection). A worker who is unaware or unresponsive to countertransference experiences can be thrown into a cycle of reactivity, both within the specific client dynamic and within one’s own psyche.

This webinar we will examine the core features of metapsychological phenomena: transference, projection, projective identification and countertransference.  Real case examples from direct service settings will be used to illustrate the complex dialectic of balancing empathic attunement with experiences of empathic strain.

Learning objectives:

• Understand key self-protective strategies clients use (transference, projection)
• Understand key self-protective strategies workers use (countertransference)
• Apply skills in “catching,” repairing and integrating metapsychological phenomena

Registration fees: $250. Student and group rates are available.

For full registration details please visit https://cvent.me/0KOYYZ