Countertransference in the Treatment of Maltreated Children and Families

Homer's Odysseus was forced to sail through a straight between 2 terrifying monsters: Charybdis, a giant whirlpool that threatened to devour the ship and crew, and Scylla, a 6-headed monster with rows of sharklike teeth who devoured men whole if they came within her grasp. Similar to Odysseus, clinicians who are treating maltreated children and their families often find themselves attempting to navigate between polarized interests and dangerously intense reactions within themselves. Powerful feelings are often elicited by maltreated children and caregivers who have experienced intersecting layers of personal, intergenerational, and often historical traumas as well as by action or inaction of complex systems. Child protective services and juvenile/family courts-which have their own language, values, and priorities-make decisions for reasons that are distinct from and sometimes in conflict with the clinical perspective of child mental health professionals.¹.