How Countertransference Really Works (In Therapy & Real Life)

What if some of the emotions you feel in close relationships don’t actually originate inside you?
In this video, I explain how countertransference and projective identification really work — not only in therapy, but in everyday life: friendships, workplaces, families, and romantic relationships.
Therapists have known for over a century that emotions can be unconsciously transmitted between people. In the therapy room, this process is called countertransference — when a therapist begins to feel emotions that belong, at least in part, to the client’s unconscious experience. What most people don’t realize is that this same psychological mechanism operates constantly outside of therapy.
Some emotions we experience in relationships are not primarily ours. They can be absorbed, carried, or held for another person, especially when that person struggles to process or tolerate their own emotional states.
At the same time, emotional experience is rarely all-or-nothing. Very often, what we feel in connection with someone is co-created — shaped by the other person’s inner world and by our own sensitivity, personal history, and capacity to contain emotion. This means that when an emotion shifts after leaving a situation, it doesn’t automatically mean it was “purely theirs” or “purely ours.”
The key is learning to notice patterns.
When the same emotional state reliably arises with the same person or within the same relational dynamic — and does not appear elsewhere — it may reflect emotional absorption or a relational process rather than a personal flaw or trait.

In this video, we explore:
• What countertransference actually is (beyond textbook definitions)
• How projective identification operates in real relationships
• Why certain people make you feel smaller, anxious, or unworthy
• Why others make you feel expansive, grounded, and more fully yourself
• How unconscious emotional transmission works
• How to tell the difference between personal emotions and relationally absorbed ones
• Why emotional sensitivity is not weakness, but information
• How to stop carrying emotions that do not belong solely to you

If you’ve ever entered a situation feeling confident and left feeling diminished — this video will help you understand what likely happened, and how to respond without losing yourself in the process.