Emotional Entanglement – Countertransference
Do you have any idea what it’s like to sit in a therapeutic/healing session and discover that what the patient is describing is similar to what’s occurring in your own experience? It happens all the time! It’s called countertransference. And it’s a wild and woolly experience for a practitioner!
If you know a bit about energy, you know that we all tend to attract what we’re vibrating. That’s how countertransference occurs.
Wikipedia: Countertransference … a therapist’s emotional entanglement with a client.
Challenging. Unpleasant. A careful navigation.
Practitioners learn to set therapeutic boundaries to navigate and manage the conscious emotional triggers that arise. So the session and the experience for the client remains relatively pristine.
Energetic Entanglement – Counterenergetics
Unfortunately, in spite of the pristine therapeutic boundaries, many practitioners recognize the energetic entanglement that remains in place. Over time, this overtime adds up – to the practitioner feeling debilitated, exhausted, consumed. It’s a key factor in therapeutic burnout.
Therapists who learn about countertransference would benefit from learning about ‘counterenergetics’ and energetic boundaries as well. They’d have a winning formula for managing their practice without taking on the emotions AND energy of their patients.
Energetic Boundaries
Nurses, doctors, massage therapists, hands-on practitioners wash their hands between patients. Physical hygiene.
Practitioners, healers, therapists can learn and practice energetic boundaries. Energy hygiene.
An Example or Two
Recently Chakra Khan met two fabulous, well-educated, deeply committed professionals with therapeutic healing practices. Both serious about their work, and overwhelmed and burdened by the heaviness and suffering they carry and experience in their lives.
One of the two struggled with deep, prolonged depression. The other therapist dealt with a fairly extreme case of compassion fatigue (taking on patient’s problems, emotional and physical exhaustion). In both cases, neither practitioner was able to continue practicing full time.
Energy Hygiene & Boundaries
The therapists learned to apply new skills and practices, developing a handy-dandy energy hygiene toolkit. They each spent a couple of weeks integrating Energetic Boundaries and hygiene. Returning to see Chakra Khan two weeks later with a totally different story.
The practitioner struggling with depression was completely freed from the dense, heavy emotional miasma.
And the practitioner who felt burdened by compassion fatigue felt that it had evaporated – practically overnight!
Thrilling. For so many reasons.
Imagine a world where all therapeutic practitioners apply energetic boundaries and hygiene. Deepening their ability to be present without taking on the patient’s energy in the process.
Energetic Boundaries also support interactions with family, friends, colleagues, strangers – life outside of the therapy practice!
Learn Energetic Boundaries and Hygiene
Chakra Khan teaches a variety of Online Courses that provide therapists with a toolkit for setting effective energetic boundaries and applying energy hygiene. What a great feeling to be able to practice without carrying burdens or feeling plugged in to your clients process outside of the treatment space.
If you’d like to join one, you can register here! [Note: Chakras: Manifesting Like You Mean It! begins April 3, and is only $99 – a 50% savings!]
Keep your vital energy flowing!
