Transference is what a client brings into the relationship from earlier relationships; countertransference is what the social worker brings back. Both are normal, both work mostly outside awareness, and both can bend the work if no one notices them. On the ASWB exam they appear less as theory than as questions about self-awareness and supervision.
The short version
| Transference | Countertransference | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose feelings | The client's | The social worker's |
| Directed at | The social worker | The client |
| Comes from | Earlier important relationships, often parents or other authority figures | The worker's own history, and the client's effect on the worker |
| Sounds like | "You're going to judge me like everyone else does" | "I'll give her my cell number; no one else is helping her" |
| What to do | Notice it, and use it if your practice model works with it | Notice it, examine it in supervision, and keep it out of your decisions |
Where the terms come from
Both ideas come from psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud developed transference in his early clinical work and set it out in "The Dynamics of Transference" (1912). He first described countertransference in print in 1910, in "The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy", as the patient's influence on the analyst's unconscious feelings, something the analyst had to recognize in himself and master.
The meaning widened in 1950, when the psychoanalyst Paula Heimann published "On counter-transference". She argued that everything the analyst feels toward the patient belongs in the concept, and that those feelings are a tool for understanding the patient rather than only an obstacle. Contemporary practice texts mostly use her broader sense, and both terms are now used well beyond psychoanalysis, in social work, counseling and medicine.
Transference: what it looks like
Transference is not manipulation and not lying. The client is usually reacting to something real in the social worker, such as a tone, a role or a resemblance, but at a size that belongs to someone from their past. Some familiar forms:
- The expected critic. A client raised by a harsh parent apologizes constantly, hides setbacks and waits to be told off.
- The ideal helper. A client treats the social worker as the one person who understands, then feels betrayed by an ordinary limit, such as an unreturned call on a weekend.
- The one who leaves. A client becomes angry or withdrawn when the worker mentions a vacation, as if being left again.
Warm, trusting feelings (often called positive transference) can help a client engage; fearful or hostile ones (negative transference) can stall the work. Neither is a verdict on the worker. Transference can also attach to institutions: a client who has been let down by agencies before may expect the same from yours. The skill is to stay steady: not taking it personally, not retaliating, and not backing away.
Countertransference: what it looks like
The signs are usually in what you do differently with one client:
- Over-identifying. The client reminds you of yourself or of someone you love, and you start taking their side. ASWB's own sample question is built on this.
- Rescuing. You do things the client can do, give extra time, or bend a rule "just this once".
- Avoiding. You steer away from a topic that is painful for you, such as a client's grief that mirrors your own.
- Strong negative feelings. Irritation, boredom or dread before a session, or relief when the client cancels.
- Taking sides. In family or couples work, you find yourself allied with one member against another.
A useful test is to ask whether you would make the same decision for any other client in the same situation. If the answer is no, the difference is worth examining.
Two terms that get confused with them
Projection is a defense mechanism: attributing your own unacceptable feelings or impulses to someone else, as in "I'm not angry, you are." It can be part of what happens in transference, but the two are not the same thing. Defense mechanisms on the ASWB exam covers projection and its neighbors.
Parallel process is a supervision concept. The way a client relates to the social worker reappears, outside anyone's awareness, in the way the worker relates to the supervisor, and it can run the other way too. It matters here because the 2026 outlines discuss transference and countertransference in the context of supervision.
Telling them apart: four short cases
All four are fictional.
"You sound just like my mother." A client bristles every time the social worker reminds him about a benefits form, and tells her so. Nothing about the reminders is harsh. This is transference: an ordinary limit is being felt at the size of an old relationship. What helps is to stay steady and curious ("What is it like when I bring the forms up?") while keeping the limit in place.
The extra hour. A social worker has started staying late for a young client who reminds her of her brother, and has not mentioned it in supervision. This is countertransference in its rescuing form. What helps is to bring it to supervision, return to the usual boundaries, and look at what the extra time was standing in for in the plan.
"Why are you angry with me?" A client who has just described a furious row with his employer accuses the social worker, who has been listening quietly, of being angry with him. This is projection: his own anger is located in someone else. It can be part of transference too, and either way the first move is to reflect what you hear rather than defend yourself.
Both at once. A client describes the social worker as the only person who has ever really helped, and the worker finds she enjoys it and has started answering texts late at night. The client's idealization is transference; the worker's pleasure and the late replies are countertransference. Each feeds the other, which is why supervision is the place to untangle them.
What to do with countertransference
- Notice it. Name the feeling to yourself, without judging it.
- Ask where it comes from. This client, your own history, or both.
- Take it to supervision. That is where reactions are examined first, and it is ASWB's keyed answer.
- Keep it out of your decisions. No special favors, no avoided topics, no self-disclosure that serves your needs rather than the client's.
- Refer only if it cannot be managed. ASWB calls referral premature at the first sign of a reaction.
- Get your own support when the material is personal. Supervision looks at the work; it is not therapy for the worker.
This is the NASW Code of Ethics' value of competence in practice. Its principle reads: "Social workers practice within their areas of competence and develop and enhance their professional expertise." Self-awareness is part of that expertise.
On the 2026 ASWB exam
The 2026 outlines name transference and countertransference in the supervision section of all four exams, framed around the supervisory relationship. ASWB's 2026 Guidebook adds a sample question that shows how the exam treats countertransference with clients. In our words:
A social worker providing family therapy realizes that one of the children reminds him of his own child who died, and notices he is aligning with that child in sessions. What should he do NEXT? The options are to try to dissociate from the feelings during sessions, to refer the family to another social worker, or to obtain supervision. The key is obtain supervision.
ASWB's rationale makes three points worth learning. Being aware of one's reactions to clients is "an ongoing task" of social workers providing therapeutic services, tied to the ethical principle of competence. Trying to shut the feelings off does not address them and may harm the worker over time. And referral is premature at this point; supervision comes first. ASWB codes the question to the profession's values and ethics, not to the supervision statement, so it is in effect an ethics question.
The patterns that follow:
- Read whose feelings the stem describes. When a vignette tells you what the social worker realizes, notices or finds herself doing, it is usually testing self-awareness, and the keyed answer deals with the worker's reaction before acting on the client.
- A strong reaction to a client means supervision NEXT, not suppression, not immediate referral and not self-disclosure. A social worker in independent practice with no supervisor takes it to consultation with an experienced colleague, which does the same job.
- In supervision questions, the supervisor names a pattern tentatively and keeps the focus on the client's care. Supervision is not therapy, so personal difficulties are referred elsewhere.
- Not all deference is transference. A supervisor holds real evaluative power over a supervisee's job and license, and some caution is simply an accurate reading of that.
- A client's transference is understood before it is answered. Stay steady and consistent rather than defending yourself or pulling back.
Our LCSW practice questions include a worked item on examining a strong reaction in supervision, and the six core values shows how competence questions are built.
Where to study it
Our Supervision and Administration chapter has a full lesson on transference, countertransference and parallel process in supervision. ASWB ethics questions, worked covers the reasoning behind NEXT and FIRST in ethics items, and the theories cheat sheet puts the psychodynamic ideas beside the others the exam assumes.
Sources: Sigmund Freud, "The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy" (1910) and "The Dynamics of Transference" (1912); Paula Heimann, "On counter-transference," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 31 (1950); NASW Code of Ethics, ethical principles (competence); ASWB Examination Guidebook (August 2026), content outlines and sample question. Checked October 15, 2026. ASWB Master is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or approved by the Association of Social Work Boards.