Countertransference as the therapist's mental activity: Experience and gender differences among psychoanalytically oriented psychologists.

Mental states as part of countertransference responses in psychotherapists facing reports of traumatic events of mourning and sexual violence

“…Combining scores from both vignettes, no gender differences were found between male and female participants, contrary to Lecours et al (1995), who found men to be more objective-rational, and Normandin and Bouchard (1993), who found women to be more reflective.…”

“…A similar difference is expected using the ICB, with more negative CT observed in response to the rape vignette and more positive CT in response to the sudden death case. Finally, considering both observer-rated and self-reported mental states, we expect to find overall (similar to previous studies reported by Lecours et al, 1995;Normandin & Bouchard, 1993) that men will be more objectiverational and experienced psychotherapists will be less mentalized, or more reactive.…”

“…In a partial replication study, Lecours, Bouchard, and Normandin (1995), examining 40 psychodynamic therapists, observed that more experienced participants were more reactive. They also found that female therapists were more reflective, showing greater observation and capacity to formulate their inner subjective reactions, whereas men were more frequently objective and rational (adopting the position of an aloof, affectively ''neutral'' but distant nonparticipant observer).…”

“…Participants were instructed to write down their spontaneous reactions and associations to each of the written segments of both vignettes presented. These conditions attempted to partially replicate the work of Normandin and Bouchard (1993) and Lecours et al (1995), where therapists were also given two sessions of two different patients to therapists of both sexes and different backgrounds in order to write their associations after reading each segment. Nonetheless, in comparing with the original Normandin and Bouchard (1993), Lecours et al (1995), and Séguin and Bouchard (1997) series of studies, four factors emerge that specify the present work: (a) Vignettes differ, with the present stimuli involving explicit violence and more intensely Mental states and traumatic events 527 traumatic experiences experienced by patients; (b) culture and language vary (North American, mostly francophone participants versus Latin American, Brazilian, and Portuguese-speaking participants); (c) clinical and theoretical orientation is not identical between samples (psychodynamic, behavioralÁcog-nitive, and humanistic therapists vs. mostly psychoanalytic and psychodynamic participants); (d) level of experience, particularly among the comparatively inexperienced groups, is not totally equal (virtually inexperienced, i.e., B8 months experience in the initial study vs. almost 2 years among the group of inexperienced participants in the present work).…”

“…Both instruments are also to be compared with a well-established instrument, the ICB, with hopes of establishing a convergent discriminant network of associations between them, contributing to their mutual further validation. For comparison, the sample was divided 526 P. Goldfeld et al between female and male and experienced (10 years of practice) and inexperienced (B3 years) therapists, as in Normandin and Bouchard (1993) and Lecours et al (1995). Thus, our objectives are to contribute to both the MSRS and ICB concurrent validity, to report on the development of a self-report version of the MSRS, and to report the application of a slightly modified expert-rated (rather than supervisor-rated) version of the ICB, as applied to the material generated by the participants in response to the standard clinical vignettes.…”