The Raw and Tender Edge: Working with therapist attraction.

The Raw and Tender Edge of Confrontation: working with erotic countertransfence

Purpose: The purpose of this one-day workshop is to develop our awareness and understanding of the experience of erotic countertransference, or attraction towards clients. This can be a powerful, intoxicating and unnerving experience when it appears. At other times it can be more subtle or even go unnoticed.

This workshop aims to help us move beyond the taboo that can often surround this area and that may lead us to suppress our feelings and thus limit the scope of the work.

The presence of the erotic on the part of the therapist need not be a cause for alarm or shame. Rather, the arrival of this powerful energy in the therapy room can signal the emergence of something valuable within the relationship. Conscious acknowledgement of these feelings can allow us to deepen the work as well as better safeguard both our clients and ourselves.

Who is it for? Psychotherapists and counsellors and trainee psychotherapists and counsellors only.

Learning outcomes:

· To develop a conceptual framework for understanding erotic countertransference and its meaning in the therapeutic setting.

· To have begun to develop an understanding of our own erotic subjectivity in relation to our client work.

· To have a clearer sense of what ensures the safety of the therapeutic relationship.

· To be able to make use of erotic countertransference in service of the work.

What to expect:

· There will be some theory and an opportunity to pool our shared thinking on our understanding of the meaning of the erotic generally and as it appears in therapy.

· We will explore our personal relationship with the erotic to help us better understand the ways we might be triggered in our client work.

· We will explore some of the signs to look out for that suggest attraction may be present and consider the ways we can support ourselves in navigating its challenge.

· We will think about how allowing our attraction to be present can be used to deepen our understanding of our own erotic needs and their origins and meaning, at the same time as helping to illuminate those of our client.

Approach: My background in psychosynthesis is humanistic and integrative. We will be looking at the mythical origins of Eros as well as psychoanalytic and transpersonal perspectives, as all of these have something valuable to offer to our understanding. The workshop will involve a balance of the theoretical and experiential, in a spirit of supportive and collaborative enquiry.

The Trainer: I am a psychosynthesis psychotherapist and have been working in private practice as a psychosynthesis counsellor since 2015. I qualified as a psychosynthesis psychotherapist in 2023. As part of my training, I undertook research into the area of erotic countertransference. This workshop draws on that research and subsequent enquiry. I have delivered workshops on this topic in London at the Psychosynthesis Trust and locally near Bath.

If you are interested in attending, please contact me by email at kelsalltherapy@gmail.com.