Countertransference

Countertransference is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client—or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.

The phenomenon of countertransference (German: Gegenübertragung) was first defined publicly by Sigmund Freud in 1910 (The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy) as being "a result of the patient's influence on [the physician's] unconscious feelings;" although Freud had been aware of it privately for some time, writing to Carl Jung for example in 1909 of the need "to dominate 'counter-transference', which is after all a permanent problem for us". Freud stated that since an analyst is a human himself he can easily let his emotions into the client. Because Freud saw the countertransference as a purely personal problem for the analyst, he rarely referred to it publicly, and did so almost invariably in terms of a "warning against any countertransference lying in wait" for the analyst, who "must recognize this countertransference in himself and master it". However, analysis of Freud's letters shows that he was intrigued by countertransference and did not see it as purely a problem.

The potential danger of the analyst's countertransference - 'In such cases the patient represents for the analyst an object of the past on to whom past feelings and wishes are projected' - became widely accepted in psychodynamic circles, both within and without the psychoanalytic mainstream. Thus, for example, Jung warned against 'cases of counter-transference when the analyst really cannot let go of the patient...both fall into the same dark hole of unconsciousness'. Similarly Eric Berne stressed that 'Countertransference means that not only does the analyst play a role in the patient's script, but she plays a part in his...the result is the "chaotic situation" which analysts speak of'. Again, Lacan acknowledged of the analyst's 'countertransference...if he is re-animated the game will proceed without anyone knowing who is leading'.

In this sense, the term includes unconscious reactions to a patient that are determined by the psychoanalyst's own life history and unconscious content; it was later expanded to include unconscious hostile and/or erotic feelings toward a patient that interfere with objectivity and limit the therapist's effectiveness. For example, a therapist might have a strong desire for a client to get all 'A's' in university because the client reminds her of her children at that stage in life, and the anxieties that the therapist experienced during that time. Even in its most benign form, such an attitude could lead at best to 'a "countertransference cure"...achieved through compliance and a "false self" suppression of the patient's more difficult feelings'.

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