IJSP Number 8, 2026

International Journal of Supervision in Psychotherapy, Number 8, 2026 Page | 22 and cognizant of how our needs influence our therapeutic dialogue [20]. This is the ethical reason why it is essential that psychotherapists engage in their own in-depth psychotherapy, extensive supervision, and frequent communication with professional colleagues. Each psychotherapist, even if using the same theories and concepts as others, will conduct their interactions with their clients in a different manner. The central challenge for each psychotherapist is in how to make use of our natural proclivities in providing for our client ’ s welfare. This requires acceptance and appreciation of our own natural inclinations. It requires that we be vigilant as to how our affect and behaviour may influence our clients. MY COUNTERTRANSFERENCE WITH HENRY Henry also impacted me, but in different way than Loraine had. Henry was a successful actor who in our first session described himself with “ something is missing within me.” Over the next few months, I listened to Henry ’ s constant sadness and stories about his loneliness when he was a boy. I resonated with his lament. He touched my heart. I had the sense that his sad expressions were those of a 5 and 6-year-old boy who longed for the playful companionship of his father. Perhaps I was particularly sensitive to Henry ’ s developmental needs because I too had lived without a father ’ s caring involvement. I wondered if I was experiencing a reactive countertransference when I envisioned Henry being a young boy, alone with no emotional support and guidance, longing for someone. In one of our early sessions he cried, “I need my father to be with me, to play with me, to help me make things.” Over the next few months, I had a “developmental image” of young Henry [21] and used that image to form several inquiries about his life and the quality of his relationship with his parents when he was in his early school years. I asked Henry many questions about his early life: about the play he enjoyed and who played with him; what occurred in the family before he went to school each day; who greeted him when he returned from school; the type of communication at the family table; and, his bedtime routine. His memories of these important every day incidences were filled with sadness and longing, an empty sense that “something is missing in me”. Henry cried as he told me about never being sure if his father would visit him or not on weekends. “ Sometimes he would take me to meet his friends in a bar, but I hated that smelly bar. I just wanted him to teach me how to play ball.” Henry longed for his father’s involvement. He sobbed as he said, “I loved playing with Lego but he was never interested”. In response to my consistent inquiry, he also talked about his “ absent-minded mother”. “ She was always too busy or too tired to play with me or even help me with school work.” He cried, “ I was in a lot of school plays but neither of them ever seemed interested.” As I think back on the psychotherapy I did with Henry, it is clear that I acknowledged his relational-needs that he had when he was a child and I also responded to his need as an adult to have someone who was interested in his activities and who shared in his experiences. Throughout our psychotherapy, I expressed interest not only in his history but in many of the activities of his life. I inquired about the TV scripts he was reading and how he made the characters he played come alive. I focused on his relational need for a shared experience and the companionship that had been missing during his young life. With my consistent involvement, Henry ’ s persistent sadness dissipated, he terminated his psychotherapy with a sense of enjoying what he was accomplishing in his career. But I’m left with a question. Was my countertransference reactive or responsive; or both?