Countertransference: Theory, Technique, Teaching

A collection of papers on the Oedipus complex, divided into three parts: theory, practice and supervision. The contributors, who include Joyce McDougall, Hanna Segal, Otto Kernberg and Leon Grinberg, invite the reader to explore with them the processes affecting the therapist's mind - and, occasionally his body - during psychoanalytic therapy, and the reasons why the therapist thinks, feels, and reacts in a particular way. The full significance of these processes, referred to as "counter-transference" since Freud's time, has recently been recognized, resulting in the therapist's use of additional resources so that he or she can understand and help the patient more effectively.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Paula Heimann and Heinrich Racker, following on Freud's own observations, made important contributions to the study of the countertransference, considerably enlarging upon the concept and re-evaluating the nature of the psychoanalytic therapeutic relationship as a result. Since then, several distinguished analysts have continued the work, exploring in the process a variety of complimentary concepts: Projective identification and counter-identification and their clinical relevance; the notion of the containing function of the therapist; unusual countertransference reactions, and the relationship between primitive aspects of the patient's personality structure and the intensity of countertransference.

By elaborating on these and other prevailing approaches, it is hoped that this book will further illuminate the subject and draw attention to the substantial contribution which the recognition and utilization of the countertransference can bring to the analytic interaction.