Reflecting on... The hate in therapy

The business of therapy and counselling involves empathy, nurturing, care and love. As therapists we are often on the receiving end of loving projections from our clients and this makes us feel good about our work and about ourselves. I think this is particularly apparent when our clients are children. So we reciprocate by loving them back, in the maternal, nurturing sense, so that we and they are enveloped in a circle of love. Love matters; it enables children to thrive and to survive out there in the big bad world. Therapy provides the perfect (aka ‘good-enough’) model of a loving, thoughtful relationship, incorporating maternal preoccupation and infant gratitude. How wonderful to make a career out of loving and being loved!

But just as day needs night, love needs hate. So where is the hate in child therapy? We love children therefore we can’t hate them. If we did we would be hated back and that wouldn’t be very gratifying for anyone. I think hate can get split-off and lodged in our peer relationships at work; unconsciously and in a disguised form of course. Hate gets played out in office banter, rivalry, dysfunctional meetings, ignored suggestions and cancellations. It is implicit in the invitation that goes out to all except one, and in the Christmas card that one colleague ‘forgot’ to send to another. 

These all-too-familiar experiences are subtle forms of attack and could provide clues about the [dis]location of hate. They are reminiscent of playground bullying which feels infantilising or empowering depending on our perspective. They re-enact the experiences of our clients so that our system replicates theirs and becomes just as chaotic and hateful. They cause us to feel unloved and taken-for-granted, resentful and suspicious. When we recognise that we are under attack we retaliate; we fight like with like, we hate back. Or, we retreat into absence from work. Or maybe we do something else. We might try to acknowledge the hate, name it, own it and take it to supervision where it can be given a fair hearing in a loving, thoughtful environment. Just the same as when our clients bring their own experiences of hate into the therapy room for us to know about on their behalf.

 Published in BACP Children and Young People April 2012