Deadlock in psychotherapy: Therapists’ view

What is it about?

The therapists in our study experienced deadlock as a negative process, blocking the progress of therapy. At the same time they regarded deadlock as an inevitable and necessary part of the therapeutic process, something they needed to contain and work through. At the core of deadlocks we found therapists’ unfulfilled expectations of closeness and connection. In our study, the therapists’ frustrated relational expectations and lack of contact evoked negative feelings toward their clients. Blaming the client was in conflict with the therapists’ wish to be special for the client, and was followed by not understanding, being confused, angry and feeling worthless as a therapist. Losing agency and a therapeutic stance was so stressful and overwhelming that the therapists occasionally tuned out psychologically or dissociated. The deadlock situation seems to have contributed to blurred borders between the professional and the private self. On the other hand, the therapists’ self-doubt could be one of the starting points for their self-reflection. In different ways, all the therapists struggled to formulate and make sense of their elusive and incomprehensible experiences. In each therapist-client dyad, the experience of deadlock had specific and unique qualities. The qualities of the psychotherapeutic impasse depend upon the dynamics of the client and the therapist. The pattern and duration of the deadlock and how it was resolved (or not) varied from case to case. Furthermore, it was impossible for the therapists to identify the point in time when the deadlock started: the impasse could be first identified when the therapist felt lost and no longer had the ability to process what had been communicated in the therapist-client dyad.

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Why is it important?

Therapeutic impasses and deadlocks seem to be common, but elusive, shame- and guilt-associated phenomena. Deadlocks are opportunities for the therapist’s self-reflection and improvement of therapeutic skills. In order to contribute to better preconditions for therapeutic progress therapists need to be observant of and talk to others about their experiences of deadlock. The knowledge of deadlocks as natural phenomena in the therapy process has to be included as an integral part of psychotherapy education and training.