The article, The Therapeutic Process with Children with Learning Disorders, focuses on the therapeutic relationship and expectations for the treatment of students with learning disorders. Palombo discusses the ways that the therapeutic relationship is based on many the different moments one shares with a client and the ways that transference and countertransference can be addressed. What stood out to me was thinking of how a therapist will typically look to engage where a client is in the moment whether it be eye contact, body language, or responses. How the practitioner leads with empathy and without preconceived notions of how a client should act could work to improve this.
Therapists must understand when transference and countertransference are activated for one's self and how to move forward in the therapeutic alliance. The question that came up for me in this reading is what kind of work can be done to develop the training of social workers working with children and adolescents with learning disabilities to improve on the relationship and transference?