Transference and Counter Transference between Students and Professors: The Role of Gender or Motherhood in this Psychodynamic Phenomenon - Abstract
Academic setting could generate transference and counter transference between students and professors. An academic environment is also a group or individual psychotherapy setting, and the role of motherhood or gender in this psychodynamic phenomenon between therapists or Professors and patients or students remains uncertain. We applied a Teaching Performance Evaluation Questionnaire to 105 female and 41 male students; It was analyzed together to their regular medical physiology course grades. We found that students of any gender evaluated professor independent to grades. The teaching performance scores depends on motherhood and gender, the female students evaluated better the only professor that is mother, than male students. Male student obtained better scores in neurophysiology and biophysics modules than female student. These results strongly suggest that transference and counter transference processes do exist between university students and their professors, where gender and motherhood play relevant roles.