136 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

What’s Bred in the Bone:

Transference and
A journal of educational research and practice
Countertransference in
2021 Vol. 30 (1) 136-154
Teachers [Link]

John Sherry, Leslie Warner, Andrew Kitchenham*

University of Northern British Columbia

Abstract

Countertransference and transference have been well researched in the context of the client-
therapist relationship, but the few studies look at these unconscious processes in other helping
professions, such as teaching. Utilizing a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology, we
investigated how transference and countertransference are understood and experienced by
classroom teachers. We interviewed four school teachers on their understanding and
management of the two concepts in the classroom and arrived at the following themes derived
from the transcribed interviews for transference and countertransference, respectively: schema,
relationship, context, unconscious, background experience, self-awareness, and self-reflection.
We conclude with implications for teachers and counsellors alike.

Keywords: teacher reflection, transference, countertransference, relationship building,

hermeneutic phenomenology

* [Link]@[Link]
137 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

Bion (1994) suggests that “when two personalities meet, an emotional storm is created” (p.
321). Transference and countertransference are indicators of that emotional storm. Both
concepts have been well researched, with foci ranging from role reversal in the client-therapist
relationship (Borgogno & Vigna-Taglianti, 2013), to repetition compulsion in nurses (Jones,
2005), to unconscious displacement in the college classroom (Robertson, 1999), to expert
teachers (Slater et al., 2013), to nonverbal cues in clinical practice settings (Jacobs, 2013).
Recognizing that transference and countertransference have been well researched in
counselling settings, we set out to investigate both their recognition and management in
public-school teachers.

Most teachers experience countertransference and transference daily in the classroom with
limited understanding of how these crucial ideas impact their relationship development with
students, consequently impacting their teaching. To this end, our aims are to provide examples
from the extant literature on these two psychoanalytic phenomena and then provide field
examples from practising teachers in one region of one Canadian province. We believe our
study is unique as it provides data on elementary and secondary teachers’ understanding of the
phenomena and their roles in teaching and learning.

Psychoanalysis is one of the oldest psychological theories, beginning with the work of Sigmund
Freud in the early 1880s. In general terms, the unconscious indicates that there are parts of us,
as human beings, that are unknown and therefore are not responsible for logical or rational
thinking. These parts are primitive and may be experienced as emotions, anxieties, and
physical urges and unnameable pressures that impact the way we go about our daily lives and
connect with others (Boldt, 2009).

Freud popularly referred to teaching as the “impossible profession,” thus acknowledging the
complicated unconscious emotional dynamics present in the teacher-student relationship and
anxiety felt by teachers to effect change in their students (Britzman, 2009; Farley, 2013). Since
this connection, psychoanalytic theory has been used to further understand the emotional and
relational dynamics within the classroom and the student-teacher relationship. To exemplify
the diversity of psychoanalytic educational literature, one need only look to a small sample of
the literature.

Specifically, in education— which is largely dominated by educational psychology and in which

psychoanalysis is often marginalized—Boldt (2009) used psychoanalytic understanding of the
unconscious feelings of love to better identify the way in which readers engage in reading
activities. Bibby (2011) and Pitt and Brushwood Rose (2007) adopted psychoanalytic theory to
consider emotional intelligence-based approaches to learning as an alternative to social
cognitive approaches to learning. Lewkowich’s (2016) work examined reading as a
“transferential structure between reader and text … with uncertain effects of the untranslatable
138 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

unconscious” (p. 65) and how this process relates to dreams as understood by psychoanalysis.
Youell (2005) reviewed how unconscious processes for both students and teachers could impact
assessment and evaluation including exam anxiety, written submissions, inspections, and
standardized attainment tests. Cohler and Galatzer-Levy (2006) investigated the role of desire
in teaching and learning in classrooms and the impacts of suppression of this desire. Finally,
Britzman (2009) provided a strong foundation of psychoanalysis in the classroom with a focus
on the ways in which emotional dynamics can impact teaching and how this relates to current
pedagogy of an idealized teaching setting.

From our unconscious come the concepts of both transference and countertransference.
Transference is the “unconscious displacement of thoughts, feelings and behaviours from a
previous significant relationship onto current relationships” while countertransference
represents the counsellor’s reactions to the client based on the counsellor’s unresolved conflict
(Robertson, 1999, p. 151). This process of transference and countertransference is an inevitable
and natural occurrence within the therapeutic relationship and relates to the unconscious of
both the therapist and client (Miller Friedman & Gelso, 2000). Similar to a therapeutic
relationship and other helper-helpee relationships, transference and countertransference are
organic and innate to the teacher-student relationship (Britzman, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015;
Cohler & Galatzer-Leby, 2006; Elkan, 1984; Pitt & Brushwood Rose, 2007; Price, 2006;
Robertson, 1999).

For the purposes of clarity, we offer two working definitions. Transference is an unconscious
process in which a person projects feelings from a person in the past to a person in the
present. For example, a demanding student may be reenacting a previous experience with a
parent/caregiver. Countertransference is an unconscious process in which a helping
professional (e.g., teacher) transfers feelings from the past to a person in the present (e.g.,
student). For example, a teacher responding in an overly concerned way for one student while
feeling annoyed or frustrated with another may have something to do with similar previous
experiences in that helping professional’s personal life (e.g., caretaking of a parent, sibling).

Transference and countertransference can be considered as expected or implicit to human

relationships. We learn how to build relationships and connect with others within our family of
origin; these learnings then serve to guide relationships and how we relate to others
throughout our lives. Transference and countertransference can be a natural process in which
our past informs our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in our relationships in the present
moment. Although we all aspire to have a separation between work and home, transference
and countertransference at times can come as knee-jerk reactions to a combination of internal
and external events. It is through thoughtful reflection that we become aware of “what is bred
in the bone.”
139 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

We will present an overview of transference and countertransference studies, primarily in the

helping professions, with the acknowledgement that the review is not intended to be
comprehensive. Next, we outline the main research methods and why these methods were
appropriate for our hermeneutic phenomenological study. Then, we display the results of the
interview data, followed by the discussion of the findings. We conclude with recommendations
and implications.

Literature Review

We begin this review with a discussion of key research articles that investigate transference and
countertransference related to teaching. We have limited our review to three studies that outline
the impact of transference and countertransference in the university classroom setting.

In her doctoral dissertation, Slater Pasternak (2007) investigated expert teachers’ experiences
of countertransference in their college classrooms. She discussed classic countertransference
triggers for therapists, including specific issues or content presented by a client, as well as
particular personal issues or conflicts of the therapist, and concluded that for teachers
countertransference will be “stimulated by the content of the individual discourse of students,
by particular topics that might arise in discussion and/or by certain student populations or
student characteristics” (p. 39). As a result of these experiences, teachers may unconsciously
change their behaviours towards their students. She used consensual qualitative research (CQR)
in the form of semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions in which she compared
across individuals, as well as an in-depth examination of individual experiences of 14
participants from the University of Minnesota campuses. She also utilized several judges to
examine data and achieve consensus about the meaning of the data and auditor to check
interpretations. Slater Pasternak concluded that college teachers varied in their understanding
of countertransference (indicating that they did not share a common understanding of the
phenomenon), argued that extra- and intrapersonal factors evoke countertransference in the
college classroom, outlined specific triggers of countertransference from challenges to teacher
identity to ambiguity in the teacher’s role, and pointed out that the college teachers’
countertransference affected their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

In a later study, Slater et al. (2013) expanded the investigation and concentrated on teachers’
management of countertransference. Using the data from Slater Pasternak’s (2007) doctoral
study, they probed deeper into the triggers and manifestations of countertransference in the
college classroom. Their sample was eight males and six females who represented 13 different
disciplines from across the colleges and schools. Their interviews included 16 open-ended
questions that were posed in approximately the same order for each participant. Their results
revealed distinct countertransference triggers that included challenging student behaviours,
reactions such as frustration and identification with students, and countertransference
140 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

management strategies from seeking social reflection to building relationships with students to
drawing on teaching experience. The authors concluded with two recommendations for
practice: (a) formal training on countertransference and its management and (b) facilitation of
discussion among faculty to share their experiences with and management of
countertransference in the college classroom.

Britzman (2015) has written extensively on psychoanalysis in the classroom with a specific
emphasis on the human condition. As a psychoanalyst and professor, she knows the theory and
practice of psychoanalysis in the university classroom and provides several examples of
transference and countertransference in her university classroom. In particular, she highlighted
her experiences with 100 undergraduate students in a teacher education Educational
Psychology class. She invited these students, who hope to join the teaching ranks as qualified
teachers, to remember their adolescence as they work with adolescents so that they see where
teenage angst can come from and in dealing with the many conflicts that can occur between the
teacher and the adolescent and acknowledging the possibility of transference and
countertransference in their classrooms, in order to enhance the teaching and learning process.
As she poignantly wrote:
In the classroom, too, the teacher as character—her passion, knowledge, and authority,
and her ignorance, mistakes, and indifference—is oddly familiar and so animates the
student and teacher’s transference of love and hate onto the presence of pedagogy. Yes,
the transference has a different flavor in the classroom, though the problem of unwilling
recognition—the emotional situation of not wanting to know anything about that—leaves
indigestion, even as we try to relieve it with the antacid of pedagogy that we must also
admit is hard to swallow. (Britzman, 2015, p. 34)
Britzman argued that education is a recapitulation of the human condition and posited that
transference forces teachers and students to manage any uncomfortable situations and then, in
working out the conflicts, they construct those complex social interrelationships that are the
foundations of the teaching and learning process. Her anecdotes are noteworthy and provide an
in-depth examination of psychoanalysis, in general, and transference and countertransference,
in particular; however, what is missing in her 2015 work is the study of practising public-school
teachers rather than postsecondary graduate and undergraduate students who may or may not
be in teacher education. This gap is important since what should be known, in theory, and what
is known, in practice, regarding transference and countertransference is fundamental as what
teachers do in the classroom to implement the theory is, in essence, the proof of the pudding.

This brief literature review has presented a sampling of studies that examined transference and
countertransference in the helping professions. What appears to be missing is a study on
transference and countertransference that investigates the experiences of in-situ classroom
teachers and discusses their awareness of them, their management, and their poignant
examples of their presence in and out of the classroom.
141 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

Methods

Given the richness of the interview data, we adopted a qualitatively driven mixed-method
design (Kitchenham, 2009) in which “the theoretical drive and the core component are
inductive. That is, the overall drive is one of discovery, of exploration, as a means of finding
something out” (Morse & Niehaus, 2009, p. 85). For the qualitative research, we adopted a
hermeneutic phenomenology methodology for this study as we were very interested in the lived
experiences of our participants (van Manen, 1990, 1991). The aim of this type of
phenomenology is
to transform lived experience into a textual expression of its essence—in such a way that
the effect of the text is at once a reflexive re-living and a reflective appropriation of
something meaningful: a notion by which a reader is powerfully animated in his or her
own lived experience. (van Manen, 1990, p. 36)
That is, it was important to us to capture the experiences of each interviewee and to represent
those experiences in text so that others could understand better their own experiences.

At the conclusion of the survey, participants were asked if they would take part in a semi-
structured, face-to-face interview. Four participants volunteered to be interviewed and
interviews were set up at a convenient place. All four were interviewed by the second author.
The three of us designed the interview questions as a team, but based them on the statements
in the survey. Table 1 provides a sample interview protocol which varied from person to person.

In relation to transference, all interviewees were asked the same seven questions:

1. Prior to this study, what was your understanding of transference? How was it addressed
if it came up in the past?
2. Tell me about a typical example of transference for you.
3. How comfortable are you with discussing transference with others (colleagues,
administrators, friends)?
4. What helps you to respond to transference in the way that you would like?
5. How do you develop the qualities that help you manage transference?
6. How do you think your understanding and management of transference contributes to
your effectiveness as a teacher?
7. What training or preparation would you recommend to someone to help him or her
respond appropriately to transference?

Then the interviewer chose specific survey statements and responses and asked the interviewee
to expand on the answers. For instance, one participant stated, “On the survey, to the
statement, ‘Your student appears to dislike you but it is unclear why he or she dislikes you,’
you chose a ‘7’ as it happened very frequently. Tell me more about the frequency of
occurrence.” This type of embellishment was asked three to five times for each participant. For
the countertransference part of the interview, the interviewees were asked the same questions:
142 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

1. Prior to this study, what was your understanding of countertransference? How was it
addressed if it came up in the past?
2. Tell me about a typical example of countertransference for you.
3. How comfortable are you with discussing countertransference with others (colleagues,
administrators, friends)?
4. What helps you to respond to countertransference in the way that you would like?
5. How do you develop the qualities that help you manage countertransference?
6. How do you think your understanding and management of countertransference
contributes to your effectiveness as a teacher?
7. What training or preparation would you recommend to someone to help him or her
respond appropriately to countertransference?

This set of questions was followed with a series of hypothetical situations, and the interviewee
was asked to choose a number (1 [extremely infrequently] to 9 [extremely frequently]) and to
rationalize the choice of number. For instance, an interviewee was asked, “If I gave you the
statement, ‘You have had a strong reaction to your students—either positive or negative—and
you’re unclear why,’ how frequently would you say that this occurs in your teaching?” Each
interview ended with the request to supply any information that the interviewer might have
missed or the interviewee wanted to share. The interviewer then transcribed the interviews and
all three researchers used those transcriptions for analysis.

Using consensual qualitative analysis (CQA; Hill et al., 2005), the three authors examined the
transcriptions of the interviews and coded each separately from each other. Then we came
together as a group and placed the codes on chart paper. For instance, when one participant
indicated that “I had some understanding of it. It is a fairly common psychological concept” one
of us coded it as Conceptual vs. Actual. Then we came together and discussed each
interviewee’s responses line by line, and shared our codes. Once we exhausted the coding, we
looked to compress, merge, subsume, and discard codes until we reached agreement that all
responses were coded satisfactorily. The last stage was to repeat the process with the codes so
that we had defensible themes. In the end, the original 27 transference codes became four
themes: Schema, Relationship, Context, and Unconscious. Similarly, the 17 countertransference
codes were combined into three themes: Background Experience, Self-Awareness, and Self-
Reflection (see Tables 1 and 2).

Results

As Table 1 demonstrates, there were many comments related to transference in the school
setting. For ease of presentation, we will discuss each of the four main themes under separate
headings and provide the lived experiences of the participants through their own words.
143 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

Table 1

Transference Themes and Codes (From Most- to Least-Frequent)

Themes Codes Total no.

Conceptual vs, actual

Experience
Mentorship
Schema Collateral 339
Incidental
Training
Psychology

Attachment
Surrogate family
Long-term vs. short-term
Disposition vs. training
Relationship Expectations 241
Cues
Acknowledgement
Openness
Authenticity

Role vs. person

Equals knowledge
Context School size 180
Student background
Taboo

Role model
Defender
Identity
Unconscious 101
Trust vs. respect
Openness
Alpha male

Schema

We were interested in the teachers’ perceptions and understanding of transference in the

classroom. To this end, we identified 339 coded statements related to this theme. Comments
varied across the four teachers but many centred on their understanding of transference. For
instance, one teacher indicated: “I had some understanding of it. It is a fairly common
psychological concept. … Transference was something I was aware of but not really entirely
144 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

interested in” (Participant 7). This teacher indicated that there was a conceptual understanding
of transference but was not cognizant of the concept being present in the classroom.

Another teacher reflected on past teacher training but indicated that there was an awareness of
transference in the classroom: “And it just happened by fluke. … The courses opened up my
way of thinking beyond coming from a little country school to other things that I was not
prepared for or not experienced with” (Participant 50).

Other teachers provided examples of transference in the classroom or an actual recognition of

its existence in the classroom. For instance, one teacher said, “as the professional in class,
you’re kind of left wondering like ‘hey we had things, things were good and now the kid has
pulled away’” (Participant 42) and embellished the point by stating,
I think [the students] see it as that type of leadership and the classroom environment as
their family as they are with the whole group for most of the day. … The actual classroom
has a very community, extended-family type of atmosphere. (Participant 42)
Further in the interview, this teacher discussed the different elements of transference and how
to deal with both the positive and negative aspects: “For the negative parts of [transference] you
develop a thick skin and for the positive parts of it you, in alternate teaching, for the teacher
the sense of reward is maybe slightly different than the academic teacher” (Participant 42).
Another teacher pointed out that years of teaching and working with students can play a major
factor in transference as “experience plays a large role in [recognizing transference] … to be
honest, experience is a huge thing but you kinda got to sort it out” (Participant 7).

Relationship

All the teachers discussed the importance of relationships as part of the transference process
(241 instances). Comments included responses related to attachment, authenticity, openness,
and surrogate family status. One teacher pointed out that a great deal of transference is related
to parental roles as she indicated that the students “will start yelling at you because they have
been yelling at their mom … they can make that switch quite quickly” (Participant 48).

Another teacher explained how transference is just a natural part of the relationship-building
with students:
My understanding of transference is not a clinical situation; it’s just been incorporated
into who I am. I do not analyze it, so when filling out the [questionnaire], I was completely
wandering, not even thinking about what it was or the fine points of it. (Participant 50)
Another teacher echoed this sentiment: “The biggest thing though is it comes down to
relationship, you know if you have a good relationship with your students any transference or
countertransference can be dealt with. … I do tell the kids occasionally that I am like that
second mother that they wish they never had” (Participant 48). Still another teacher was
145 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

forthright in discussing the relationship part of transference as she said, “it probably leads into
that transference thing because the more you can do that tight rope between rapport and
almost the friendship level within the classroom but still be the disciplinarian” (Participant 42).

Context

As the interviews progressed, it became apparent that the teaching context was a factor in
transference as evidenced by the 180 comments. One teacher explained that the teacher role
can be paramount, as can the size of the school:
I work in a very small school so I have known all the kids, many of the kids, since the day
they were born. So when they get up into high school, I have a pretty good idea of who
they are and they have a pretty good idea of who I am so it’s very interesting when a new
kid comes into the school and has no idea, and they kind of assume that certain people
have certain identities and certain roles and such and so they react in a way that is more
stereotypical than what you could expect. (Participant 7)
Later on, the same teacher followed up with a comment on perceptions of the teacher: “Those
ideas [of teacher identity] are much more fluid as you move from one venue to the next, so you
can kind of see that there are all these different layers to each different person, and you get so
much more of that in a smaller town” (Participant 7).

Another teacher expanded on that sentiment and discussed the classroom context and how
important it can be in transference:
The more you know about where [transference] is coming from, the easier it is to deal
with. Part of it is also just building the safety in the classroom so if you’re coming in with
all kinds of other stuff that you would normally maybe transfer to other people this is a
safe place, you can just put it away and get back to work. … If you give them permission
to do that, they will. If you don’t, they’ll come in and you’re going to see that transference
all over the place, they’re going to act it out. (Participant 48)
Other teachers also provided comments that supported that sentiment.

This teacher discussed the role of the teacher from the students’ point of view: “It’s almost like
they’re scared of disappointing me which might, it’s kind of a weird thing in teaching, when
they have established you as a teacher type of thing more than just the teacher but somebody
that they are trying to please even in their social life” (Participant 42).

Unconscious

Some teachers also discussed the unconscious nature of transference in teaching but, with 101
comments, it was not the strongest theme. Several teachers pointed out that they are often
“defenders” of the students so the transference occurs as result of how the students see them
as proponents for them. One teacher said:
I work with all the kids that have learning problems and behaviour disorders so yeah, they
146 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

flare up and attack me personally when it is actually their frustration with how they are
learning, how they see themselves as “dumb” and they [project] that frustration on me.
(Participant 50)
Later on, the same teacher expanded on the teacher’s role: “today it is just something that
happens. It can be dangerous in the sense of becoming too attached and knowing that often
some of the things that you’re exposed to can be painful and you cannot fix all problems”
(Participant 50).

Another teacher shared her observations on how the student transfers to the teacher, and
perceives her as someone to please:
It all boils down to trying to please the teacher; more academic kids do it too but they try
and do it by making a better essay or scoring higher on a test. Their motivation is not
intrinsic; it is to try and please the significant adult. (Participant 42)

Table 2 outlines the results of the coded and themed interviews from the four participants as
they discussed countertransference. Once again, we will discuss each of the three main themes
under separate headings and through the words of the interviewees.

Table 2

Countertransference Themes and Codes (From Most- to Least-Frequent)

Themes Codes Total no.

Trigger
 Own schooling
 Caretaker
 Defender
Background experience 246
Family dynamics
Disposition
Training
Mentorship

Healthy vs. unhealthy

Attachment (1-5)
Consciousness vs. unconsciousness
Self-Awareness 121
Empathy
Reciprocity
Recognition

Us vs. others
Self-Reflection Safety 78
Time and space
147 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

Background Experience

The teachers provided responses related to countertransference and identified triggers, family
dynamics, disposition, and training as key elements of the concept. One teacher discussed their
feelings as students graduate from the school:
As kids move towards graduation it’s kind of like letting go, in that sense it’s a tough one
because you do start to distance yourself from them because you know consciously that
they are going, that they are leaving. So for me, I’ve always done that and it has more to
do with I know I have to refocus my energy to another group and for me in some cases
these are very exhausting relationships so letting go of that is often part of that whole
process. (Participant 7)
Another added that “I try to distance myself as [the students] get closer to graduation [so] that
it hurts less” (Participant 42).

When asked what training or preparation they would recommend to colleagues to assist them in
responding appropriately to countertransference, the teachers had pointed comments to share.
One teacher discussed the role of schooling in countertransference:
Just because you have watched someone teach for 12 years does not mean you know who
they are; … it’s like 16 years of sitting and watching and not necessarily understanding
that there is something beyond the role. So I think they need to have a good
understanding of why they are there and what they want to achieve and how well they are
in those relationships in general because a lot of teachers go from high school to
university and then back into the classroom and it’s the only thing they know. … It takes
years to evolve … [and] gain some ideas about how they can best affect a kid’s life.
(Participant 7)
This teacher went on to provide a comment on family dynamics and how it influences
countertransference in the classroom: “I grew up in an environment where we were always kind
of challenging; it was very open discussion about what we were like but that was kind of bred in
the bone … so unconscious behaviours and ideas were always something I was interested in”
(Participant 7).

Another teacher discussed both triggers and her own schooling in relation to countertransference:
School was hell; nobody had the right to treat a child the way I was treated, humiliated,
and I didn’t want that to happen to anybody else. … It was things like that, the
humiliation, the denigration, the physical punishment that nobody had the right to treat
another person that way and I knew I was smart, I just couldn’t get it out. … And there are
things that I have experienced over my lifetime … that make me sensitive to what they are
thinking and what they are feeling. (Participant 50)

Background schooling came up several times as exemplified by this teacher’s comment: “lots of
148 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

times there will be things that the kids will say and it will trigger a little bit [of my past
experiences] and then I’ll say yeah, I totally understand and they don’t know how I understand”
(Participant 48).

Self-Awareness

These four teachers demonstrated a clear sense of self-awareness when discussing

countertransference in their classrooms. For instance, this teacher outlined his conscious and
unconscious acknowledgement:
For me it has more to do with looking at personality types and in some ways I am very
conscious of how I am feeling about this student or that student or this kid and it has
more to do with managing or not necessarily managing but rather categorizing certain
behaviours and interactions. It’s more like “Oh my god, she reminds me of this
person”…or “Oh he’s one of those.” … I don’t know how unconscious it is to be honest; I
am sure it’s there so if it’s really that unconscious I couldn’t tell you. … You try not to do
it but I mean I think unconsciously I am pretty sure I do that, just to get a read of the
land. You always try to move beyond that but I think unconsciously we all do that.
(Participant 7)
He expanded on this sentiment later on in the interview:
[Self awareness] allows me to move beyond those labels to a more richer [sic] relationship
with kids in many ways. Because they are in many instances teenagers and young adults
but at the same time, they are all very interesting, they all have their own beliefs, and
interesting ideas, they are all very much an individual. (Participant 7)

Another teacher discussed a tacit awareness of countertransference when he indicated, “I don’t

take countertransference as something that like, ‘Oh I am going to countertransfer with that
child today’; it is just something that happens” (Participant 50). He elaborated, “It can be
dangerous in the sense of becoming too attached and knowing that often some of the things
that you’re exposed to can be painful and you cannot fix all problems” (Participant 50).

Another teacher echoed this awareness:

It does surface; I find myself comparing to my sister and going “oh yeah, okay I get this.”
All it really does is give me more experience to deal with the situation; if I didn’t have this
experience which seems negative in itself to have a sister like that, it gives me the
experience to take it. (Participant 48)
Later on, this teacher discussed her colleagues’ awareness of countertransference in their
classrooms:
Not enough teachers understand the transference and the countertransference that it
actually exists. … They don’t realize that what is going on out here, whether they’ve had
that fight with husband or whatever, it comes into the classroom and the kids pick up on
149 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

that and feed off of that … and whatever they bring in they can transfer to other kids,
they can transfer to you, and then you’ve got the countertransference happening so
you’ve got to have skills to bring it all to a spot where people can actually function.
(Participant 48)

Another teacher fully admitted to countertransference in her teaching and pointed out some
perceptions of others that can make admitting to countertransference a taboo notion:
You do get students who you start treating a little bit more like a son or daughter type of
thing … It’s professionally appropriate, it doesn’t go to a weird place at all. … I can
actually see vaguely how if a teacher has no sense of boundaries, how that type of
relationship can be misconstrued or manipulated in a way that just isn’t proper.
(Participant 42)

Self-Reflection

The last theme dealing with countertransference was coded as a sense of safety, external
factors, and time and space. For example, this teacher discussed how teachers do not always
reflect on their interactions with students as she pointed that “teachers typically work in
isolation and because of that we’re not always aware of what, or how we are interacting with
kids. I suspect … we have a sense of what we are doing but it’s not always something we
discuss with our colleagues” (Participant 7).

Another teacher shared, “Usually if I have a reaction that is out of the normal, I am
introspective” (Participant 42) and followed up with the exemplary comment:
Quite often I am laying awake, staring at the ceiling and what runs through your head is
the situations of the day. And you try for some personal growth, try for some different
things [but] … I do have trouble with the countertransference; it’s a little bit more
sensitive. (Participant 42)
One teacher’s comment sums up much of what we heard from the teachers on the topic of
transference: “It’s just a matter of giving it that space, thinking about it, and then going back”
(Participant 48).

Discussion

It is apparent that these teachers demonstrated an understanding of transference and

countertransference but they are not always aware of the students’ transference or their own
countertransference. All teachers provided answers that showed examples of transference and
countertransference; however, at times, they were not cognizant of these demonstrations.
Similar to Baron’s (1960) observation, we noted that transference can be used by the teacher as
a “highly effective catalyst in the learning process” (p. 89). Positive transference should be
recognized in the classroom and when it interferes with the teaching process addressed, similar
150 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

to psychoanalysis where it should be resolved (Baron, 1960). Students do best in classrooms

when there are positive transference feelings, positive expectations, and enthusiasm; however,
this may lead to favouritism or special treatment and is something to monitor.

Teachers provided countertransference examples that were “a response to transference and

influenced by the particular qualities of whatever is being transferred materially” (Jones, 2005,
p. 1178). Similar to Jones’s (2005) nursing examples with Kate and Michael, our teachers were
drawn to teaching because of upbringing and early events in their lives that impacted them and
came back into their teaching. Some teachers pointed out that the educator must monitor the
relationship for “extraneous emotional elements that may enter and distort the educational
partnership and thus impede smooth functioning” (Elkan, 1984, p. 233). In this sense, the
teacher’s position is similar to therapist—he or she must remain neutral and should use
professional integrity to treat students fairly and objectively (Elkan, 1984).

Similar to Price’s (2006) finding that teachers and therapists “can guide, train, instruct and
facilitate learning” with more power and knowledge than the child” (p. 150), we found that the
teacher sits structurally in the place of the superego for the student. Teachers hold the position
of authority, as recalled by many of our interviewees’ comments on the teacher’s role in
transference and countertransference interactions. In other words, individual teachers and
children respond differently to the structural dynamic of the teaching and learning task so that
the “child must manage a greater degree of dependence and need… [and] the teacher must
manage greater degree of power” (Price, 2006, p. 151).

Building relationships and rapport were key areas that surfaced in the teacher interviewees. In
reviewing what effective teaching was, Slater Pasternak (2007) argued that
interpersonal rapport contributes to exemplary teaching [and] is evidenced by low
inference and high inference behaviours that include showing concern, care and respect
for the individual student, offering help, encouraging discussion and providing feedback
to students. [These factors] are related both to perceptions of effective teaching and
positive classroom climate. (p. 23)
The teachers in this study pointed out that rapport with students was important to the learning
the occurred in the classroom. In many cases, the teachers reflected that it was their own life
experiences that allowed them to connect with the children they taught. Having had similar life
experiences or recalling their own experiences growing up or in school allowed them to build
empathy and exhibit these low- and high-inference behaviours to build rapport with those they
teach. Building relationships with students is complex and comes in different forms, but the
common thread is around the concern that the student experiences.

Further, the teachers in this study pointed out that trust is an important aspect of the relation-
building framework. Raider-Roth (2005), Brownlee (2004), and Wang (2012) argued that the
151 Sherry, Warner, & Kitchenham

students’ learning environments should be centred on a relational pedagogy in which students

are encouraged to include personal beliefs/experiences, evidence, and theory to support their
beliefs in an atmosphere of caring and trust (Brownlee, 2004). Relationships, trust in self, and
trust in others are the foundation of learning (Raider-Roth, 2005) so once this foundation is
built, a teacher should be encouraged to choose “strategies that fit his/her personality, skills,
thinking, beliefs, subject matter, students in class, and other factors of the particular teaching
context” (Hativa et al., 2001, p. 726). As relationships develop, transference and
countertransference emerge as well and, with insight and understanding, are something to be
utilized as part of the continued desire to build rapport with students.

All four teachers were adamant that teacher education training or professional development in
dealing with transference and countertransference in the classroom should be a priority for
universities and school districts. Gaining insight into personal lives and receiving training
similar to therapists is important for successful teachers; training that reflects on how to
respond to transference and countertransference in the classroom. Self-awareness and insight
are important instruments in the classroom (Baron, 1960) and once this foundation is built, a
teacher should be encouraged to choose “strategies that fit his/her personality, skills, thinking,
beliefs, subject matter, students in class, and other factors of the particular teaching context”
(Hativa et al., 2001, p. 726), requiring reflective practice to consider what strategies they
actually use, what they planned to use, and their success at using them.

Conclusion

This exploratory study has demonstrated that teachers are aware of transference in their
students but may not always be aware of countertransference in themselves, as demonstrated
by the comments our interviewees made about their colleagues. It was clear that these teachers
recognized transference and countertransference in the classroom, but they argued that more
awareness training needs to occur for other teachers. They also recognized the importance of
acknowledging psychoanalytical concepts in teaching—eloquently described as “bred in the
bone” for teachers.

To this end, we argue that an implication of our research is that teachers need time in their
schedules to discuss their experiences with transference and countertransference in the sense
of talking about the feelings that arise around particular students and not mentioning names. If
there is an open forum for teachers to outline their experience with these unconscious
behaviours and to share their coping mechanisms, a channel for further discussion could be
opened. For example, if a teacher explains how one student treats her differently or how she
treats a student differently and realizes that it is because of past experiences with other people,
her peers might be able to share ways to deal with the emotions evoked.
152 Brock Education Journal 30 (1)

Similarly, we argue that additional training and professional development for teachers should
be provided so that teachers can identify transference and countertransference in the classroom
from a conceptual to actual understanding. Many teachers were exposed to transference and
countertransference as concepts, when they were in teacher training; however, their
understanding of them only came when they started teaching students. Some teachers continue
to be trained without any exposure to the concepts so additional training from experts in the
field would be beneficial. In British Columbia, teachers now have required professional
development (PD) with a certain degree of accountability on whether or not they attend PD days
as written in their contracts. Recognition and management of transference and
countertransference could be a welcome change and certainly advantageous to the teaching
profession.

Clinical peer supervision is a process through which peers provide support and guidance with a
focus on professional development. Although the idea of discussing unconscious dynamics
between teachers and students may be atypical in the teaching profession due to ethical
considerations when working with vulnerable people in a fiduciary role, there are instances in
other non-counselling professions where it occurs. Without this type of support for teachers,
the potential for teachers to “act out” feelings that emerge as a result of countertransference is
more likely. A peer support group would provide teachers with the opportunity to support and
be supported by their peers, so crucial to sustaining positive, continuous improvement in their
work.

We perceive another implication of our research is the use of a support group. The idea of
participating in a psychosocial support group, one in which it is safe to share a multitude of
feelings that often come up around teacher-student interactions, would likely have multiple
benefits including an understanding of why some relationships may be strained. Only when
teachers understand the range of intense emotion that often comes up in their work can they
regulate and appraise their emotions rather than suppress them.

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