IJSP Number 1, 2019

61 3. THE CASE IMPACT ON THE PSYCHOTHERAPIST Many times working with clients, especially during the first meetings, we often appeal to expressions like: ”I am here for you and I want to hear your story”, ”I will listen to you and you will see that we will find a solution together”, ”When no one hears your scream for help, I am here to listen to you”, ”When you fall and want to lift yourself up, I am here to help, to encourage and to guide you”. But what happens when at the end of the first meeting with the client, the psychotherapist is completely unmoved emotionally, feels that there is no connection between him/her and the client and even more feels that he/she cannot empathize with the client? Whose fault is it: the client’s or the psychotherapist’s? Is the word fault correctly used here? Does it have its place in this narrative? What is actually happening? I propose to answer all these questions in the following pages, tackling a well-known and frequent phenomenon encountered in psychology offices. I am referring of course to the identification with the client , in other words the emotional or rational blockage the psychotherapist faces because something from the client’s story touched a certain vulnerability/sensibility that is not completely solved and that the psychotherapists continues to have. These types of blockages if they are not realized in time, if they are not brought to light and discussed during the supervision meetings (individual or group meetings) held with the supervisor, can greatly hamper the therapeutic process. Thus, the client will not have his/her problem solved and the psychotherapist could get so caught in his/her client’s story that he/she would be incapable of having and resemblance of objectivity regarding the case. With the recognition, with the help of the supervisor, of these difficulties that may prevent or slow down the therapeutic process, the psychotherapist will be far more careful from that moment on not to get anchored in his/her client’s life story, taking all the necessary precautions in order to remain focused on the case and to help the client along the psychotherapeutic process, to help the client develop him/herself, this development comes with accepting the problem, a cognitive restructure and building a secure attachment style. I will continue by speaking strictly about the way in which the presented case managed to involuntary trigger in me certain reactions, emotions, sensitivities. I admit that I would not have been able to work at an emotional and cognitive level on this case, if I as a psychotherapist wouldn’t have had the courage to admit that there is a problem and that this case, at least at its start, overwhelmed me and I couldn’t handle. A question I had at the end of the first meeting with the teenage girl and an alarm signal, a question that sounded like this: “What is the reason for which I, as a psychotherapist, cannot relate at all with this person?” This question had a