Body-centred countertransference or 'somatic countertransference refers to feelings that a psychological practitioner has about a client. Referring to the psychologists sensation in the gut, changes to breathing, to heart rate and to tension in muscles'.

In female trauma therapists

Irish psychologists at NUI Galway and University College Dublin have recently begun to measure body-centred countertransference in female trauma therapists using their recently developed 'Egan and Carr Body-Centred Countertransference Scale' (2005), a sixteen symptom measure (see link: http://www.lenus.ie/hse/bitstream/10147/121271/1/BodycentredCounter.pdf.) Their research was influenced by developments in the psychotherapy world which was beginning to see a therapist's role in a therapeutic dyad as reflexive; that a therapist uses their bodies and 'self' as a tuning fork to understand their client's internal experience and to use this attunement as another way of being empathic with a client's internal world. Pearlman and Saakvitne's seminal book on vicarious traumatization

Vicarious traumatization

Vicarious traumatization is a transformation in the self of a trauma worker or helper that results from empathic engagement with traumatized clients and their reports of traumatic experiences. Its hallmark is disrupted spirituality, or meaning and hope...

 and the effect of trauma work on therapists has also been an important directional model for all researchers studying the physical effects of trauma work on a therapist. High levels of body-centred countertransference has since been found in both Irish female trauma therapists and clinical psychologists. This phenomenon is also known as 'somatic countertransference' or 'embodied countertransference' and it links to how mirror neurons might lead to 'unconscious automatic somatic countertransference' as a result of postural mirroring by the therapist. Loughran (2002) found that 38 therapists out of 40 who had responded to a questionnaire (which was distributed to a sample of 124 therapists) on a therapist's use of body as a medium for transference and countertransference

Countertransference

Countertransferenceis defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client—or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.-Early formulations:...

 communication reported that they had experienced bodily sensations (nausea or churning stomach, sleepiness, shakiness, heart palpitations, sexual excitement etc.) while in session with patients.

Frequency of symptom occurrence

A list of the frequency of occurrence of body-centred countertransference symptoms reported by trauma therapists (Sample A: 35 Female Irish Trauma therapists) and Irish clinical psychologists (Sample B: 87 Irish Clinical Psychologists)in the previous six months 'when in-session with a client' is given below in order of frequency:

1. Sleepiness (A; 92%, B; 76%)
2. Muscle Tension (A; 83%, B; 79%)
3. Yawning (A; 65%, B; 77%)
4. Unexpected shift in body (A; 77%, B; 57%)
5. Tearfulness (A; 71%, B; 61%)
6. Headache (A; 54%, B; 53%)
7. Stomach Disturbance (A; 41%, B; 46%)
8. Throat Constriction (A; 34%, B; 36%)

1. Raised Voice (A; 29%, B; 33%)
2. Dizziness (A; 26%, B; 19%)
3. Loss of voice (A; 32%, B; 18%)
4. Aches in joints (A; 37%, B; 18%)
5. Nausea (A; 23%, B; 18%)
6. Numbness (A; 29%, B; 15%)
7. Sexual Arousal (A; 26%, B; 11%)
8. Genital pain (A; 6%, B; 2%)

Somatization

A small but significant relationship was found between female trauma therapists' level of body-centred countertransference and number of sick leave days taken, suggesting a possible relationship between uncensored body-centred countertransference and somatization

Somatization

Somatization is currently defined as "a tendency to experience and communicate somatic distress in response to psychosocial stress and to seek medical help for it".This can be, but not always, related to a psychological condition:...

. This relationship was not however found in clinical psychologists who were working mainly with a non-trauma population. Therapists have noted the connection between a tendency for some clients to express emotional discomfort by focusing on bodily symptoms rather than being able to put their emotional distress into words (see link; http://www.lenus.ie/hse/bitstream/10147/121822/1/SomatizationDis.pdf). It is thought that such processes are more common in people who have experienced childhood abuse and trauma. Recent research which measured female genital arousal in response to rape cues found that women when listening to rape, consent or violence developed genital arousal more frequently than men. This response in females might function to protect their genital organs against injury. It also might explain the relatively frequent reported experience of sexual arousal amongst Irish female trauma therapists. Further validation of body-centred countertransference in psychologists and therapists is on-going in both []NUI Galway and Trinity College Dublin.

See also

• Mirror neuron
  Mirror neuron
  A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behaviour of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons have been directly observed in primate and other...
  
  
• Vicarious traumatization
  Vicarious traumatization
  Vicarious traumatization is a transformation in the self of a trauma worker or helper that results from empathic engagement with traumatized clients and their reports of traumatic experiences. Its hallmark is disrupted spirituality, or meaning and hope...
  
  
• Traumatology
  Traumatology
  Traumatology is the study of wounds and injuries caused by accidents or violence to a person, and the surgical therapy and repair of the damage. Traumatology is a branch of medicine. It is often considered a subset of surgery and in countries without the specialty of trauma surgery it is most...
  
  
• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Compassion fatigue
  Compassion fatigue
  Compassion fatigue is a condition characterised by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among trauma victims and individuals that work directly with trauma victims. It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s...
  
  
• Burnout
  Burnout (psychology)
  Burnout is a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest. Research indicates general practitioners have the highest proportion of burnout cases; according to a recent Dutch study in Psychological Reports, no less than 40% of these experienced high levels of...
  
  

• Countertransference
  Countertransference
  Countertransferenceis defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client—or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.-Early formulations:...
  
  
• Somatization disorder
  Somatization disorder
  Somatization disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis applied to patients who persistently complain of varied physical symptoms that have no identifiable physical origin...
  
  
• Hysterical contagion
  Hysterical contagion
  Hysterical contagion occurs when a group of people show signs of a physical problem or illness, when in reality there are psychological and social forces at work....
  
  
• Therapeutic relationship
  Therapeutic relationship
  The therapeutic relationship, also called the helping alliance, the therapeutic alliance, and the working alliance, refers to the relationship between a healthcare professional and a client...
  
  
• Alexithymia
  Alexithymia
  Alexithymia from the Ancient Greek words λέξις and θυμός modified by an alpha-privative—literally "without words for emotions"—is a term coined by psychotherapist Peter Sifneos in 1973 to describe a state of deficiency in understanding, processing, or describing...
  
  
• Embodied countertransference
• Somatic countertransference

Further reading

Kate White ed., Touch: Attachment and the Body (2004)