Metabolizing Countertransference in an Adolescent Group Treatment Internship

AbstractIn both graduate classrooms and field placements, social work student interns are increasingly taught empirically-supported, behaviorally-focused models as the primary way to engage in ethical practice. They are less prepared, however, to handle the personal impact of powerful psychodynamic processes active in therapeutic settings. In adolescent group treatment environments, the combination of novice therapists with dual-diagnosed, involuntary/mandated teens sets the stage for both behavioral and transference/countertransference issues to arise. Although supervision at the field setting is expected to ameliorate emergent issues, the behavioral and group-level focus of field supervisors may not be enough to identify and overcome deeper psychodynamic challenges. Student interns, as they provide professional treatment to their clients, may therefore have to self-navigate emotionally charged inter- and intra-personal conflicts and attempt to metabolize their own reactions to trauma and dysfunction. This paper presents a detailed post-treatment review of a student intern ’s struggle to metabolize individual countertransference dynamics in a group setting in the service of a client, and provides supervisory insights on his approach to highlight the challenges and possibilities in such an environment.
Source: Clinical Social Work Journal - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research