Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CAADC) Practice Exam

When a counselor's personal issues project onto a client, what is this known as?

1. Transference

2. Counselor projection

3. Countertransference

4. Client resistance

The correct answer is: Countertransference

The situation described, where a counselor's personal issues influence their perceptions and interactions with a client, is referred to as countertransference. This phenomenon occurs when a counselor unconsciously redirects feelings, emotions, and responses stemming from their own personal history onto the client. Countertransference can manifest as strong emotional reactions, biases, or inappropriate involvement in a client's treatment, often resulting in a potential barrier to effective counseling. A counselor must maintain self-awareness and engage in supervision or personal therapy to mitigate these risks, ensuring that their own experiences do not hinder the client's journey. Transference, on the other hand, refers specifically to the client's projection of feelings and attitudes from past relationships onto the counselor. Counselor projection, while sharing similarities with countertransference, is not a commonly used term in the therapeutic context. Client resistance denotes the reluctance of a client to engage fully in the therapeutic process, which does not directly relate to the counselor's personal issues influencing the session.