Knowing when you are triggered
Now that you have gone down a little further on the road of self-discovery, it is essential to look back and recognise some of your potential triggers. If you are feeling lonely or unfulfilled in your relationship or marriage, this could mean that there is a greater potential for you to harbour a potential bias. This cognitive bias can show itself in many ways;
- You could be more inclined to tell someone to give up and leave a relationship that they are unhappy in
- You could also tell a client to stay in an unhappy relationship when it is clear that it is time to leave
- You can go more into directing the person on what you think they should do rather than guiding them on their own journey of self-discovery
- There is a potential that you will try and fill your loneliness with connections from clients, creating dual relationships
- You may develop romantic feelings toward a client
- You may act on the romantic feelings towards the client
- You may see yourself in the client and be caught in countertransference
- You may not be able to hold consistent and strong boundaries with clients
I could go on, but you get the picture. I am not saying that you need to be perfect and not have any triggers ever before you begin your career as a counsellor. This is unrealistic, and the perfectionist attitude only means that you are less able to see a mistake when they occur, which they will. If we are ashamed of something or think that we need to deal with it on our own, we put it in a box and bury it in a dark cave, not wanting to deal with it. As professionals, we need to be able to take that box out, dust it off and deal with the content inside – if not, there will always be pockets that you will intentionally keep out of your conscious awareness. When that happens, we avoid topics that make us feel uncomfortable and steer our clients away from them, capping their growth and ours.
Perfection does not exist; in your career, you will make mistakes. The more you can accept and embrace this fact, the easier it is to deal with them when they occur. A mistake is a learning opportunity; it is not wasted if you learn from it. Going through this course, if you think that you are infallible and would never do these things because you are better than those other counsellors who put themselves in those situations, then you will most likely miss the early warning signs when a similar situation happens to you.
One of the biggest reasons that mental health professionals get themselves into trouble is when they practice in isolation and do not collaborate with others. If you attempt to do things on your own and don’t take embarrassing or confronting moments with clients to your supervisor for guidance, you will be at greater risk of harm to yourself and your clients.
Have no shame, and be prepared to be embarrassed. Working in this profession can be extremely confronting at times, and you are bound to get triggered by one client or another – your triggers are your red flags for personal evolution. If you have a trigger, all it means is that you have a button. When you notice that a button is there, your responsibility is to remove the button, and some are really hard-wired and require assistance to remove. The more buttons (triggers) we can remove, the more clarity we will have in our clinic rooms and everyday life.
If a client pushes a button, all you need to do is be aware of it at that moment and place it to the side to pick it up at a more appropriate time. It might be helpful to do a journaling exercise after the session to unpack what the trigger was for you, speak to a peer, or take it to your personal therapist or supervisor. It doesn’t matter how you deal with your buttons so long as you do. If you do not, it can trigger you into a state of countertransference, and you may become temporarily unskilled. Some examples of what countertransference may look like are:
- inappropriately disclosing personal information
- offering advice
- not having boundaries
- developing strong romantic feelings toward the client
- being overly critical of the client
- being overly supportive of the client
- allowing personal feelings or experiences to get in the way of the therapy
- obsessing over the client and thinking about them constantly
- constantly checking and asking for reassurance that you did the right thing in a session
- looking forward to seeing a client and dressing up for them
- feeling distressed when seeing a client’s name and not wanting to see them
- seeing yourself in the client
- wanting to be friends with the client and being overly friendly
- wanting to invite the client to hang out outside of the therapy space
- asking the client for advice or services from their profession (e.g. building, landscaping, law)
- asking questions out of curiosity and just wanting to know that has no benefit to the therapeutic process
Again, the list is practically endless, as there are so many ways in which countertransference can appear in the therapy session. If you recognise that you are doing something from the list above or other things that might be classed as countertransference, then you must look inward and ask yourself why. Why this person? Why this situation? Why now? Get curious about it and embrace your triggers and reactions as learning opportunities. The worksheet below is an excellent companion when exploring some of your triggers and why they might be occurring.