Transference and Countertransference Today

Robert Oelsner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415830713
• eBook ISBN: 9781135045340
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Why has Heinrich Racker's original work on transference and countertransference proven so valuable?

With a passionate concern for the field created by the meeting of analyst and patient, and an abiding interest in the central importance of transference and countertransference in analytic practice, Robert Oelsner has brought together the thought and work of seventeen eminent analysts from Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

In new essays commissioned for this volume, the writers have set aside the lines that can often divide psychoanalytic groups and schools in order to examine in depth the variety of approaches and responses that characterize the best analytic practice today. The result is a collection of fresh, contemporary material centred on the two interrelated subjects – transference and countertransference – that make up the core of psychoanalytic work. Both in the clarity of their language and in moving clinical examples the writers reveal, in distinctively personal ways, how Heinrich Racker's original thought, which brought the analyst's unconscious responses into the equation, has allowed them to evolve their own perspectives. Yet it is particularly interesting to find unexpected parallels among the chapters that point toward a shared vision. Clearly, whether in work with adults or children, transference and countertransference are now seen as encompassing a field that embraces both participants in the consulting room.

Making Transference and Countertransference Today still more valuable as a resource for teachers and students are several major contributions by authors whose work is not otherwise readily available in English. Psychoanalysts and others will find few other books that present such a thoughtful picture of these crucial and fascinating analytic topics.

1

Observations on Countertransference as a Technical Instrument

Preliminary communication

Heinrich Racker

In a previous paper about a number of problems concerning countertransference (Racker, 1948),¹ I also made reference to the fact that countertransference reactions can provide evidence to the analyst of what is going on in the analysand.

In a subsequent study (Racker, 1950),² I briefly returned to this issue and made a first attempt at phrasing the “objective” and general meaning of a certain countertransference reaction that is both frequent and important. That is, I first attempted to establish a rule that would enable us to deduce from countertransference the psychological state of the analysand. Shortly afterward, in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, I found a recent paper by Paula Heimann (1950) on the same subject that was in agreement with the perspectives and conclusions put forward in the aforementioned papers.³ Indeed, Heimann’s essay has encouraged me to communicate some of the observations I have made with regard to this subject since the first communication.

However, before I do so, I would like to recapitulate the ideas on countertransference that I have already put forward. In the first paper, while addressing paranoid countertransference reactions, I analyzed the anger sometimes felt by the analyst when he is faced with the analysand’s resistances, and I pointed out that this reaction stems from the internal states of both the analysand and the analyst. In particular, I stated that countertransferential hate points toward the existence of aggressiveness and anxiety in the analysand, which originate, in turn, in certain relationships with the analysand’s introjected objects.⁴ In the second paper I summarized these ideas as follows:

The analyst’s perception of his own countertransference states could prove an important instrument for the understanding of the analysand’s transference states. If the analyst can use his negative countertransference reactions in favor of the treatment, he is usually able to overcome them. When does negative countertransference appear? In general terms, it could be said that it is the result of the analyst feeling that the analysand has frustrated him. In this sense, we could claim, although it may only be partly accurate, that whenever the analyst is angry, the analysand has a feeling of guilt about his transference aggressiveness. To put this in the terms of the present paper: whenever the analyst experiences anger, the analysand is defending himself from the basic paranoid situation, which is being transferred in a latent fashion by means of the identification with the “bad object” (that is, the frustrating object). Deep down, what has been projected onto the analyst is a persecutor; on the surface, it is the superego that reproaches him for his tendencies, or behavior, that correspond to the aforementioned identification.⁵

(Racker, 1950, p. 37)

Before I make my observations – in a series of examples that illustrate my thesis – I would like to emphasize that I am merely trying to point out that countertransference, which is frequently experienced as a hindrance to [our] work, and is associated with feelings of guilt, could also be used to advance the analytic treatment. The key to understanding our patients continues to be, as always, the capacity to pick up unconscious phenomena by means of the analyst’s own unconscious. However, both this understanding as well as the working-through of what has been understood are more or less frequently interfered with by countertransference reactions;⁶ it is in cases such as these that the approach adopted in this paper provides important advantages.

I will now present an example of a countertransference reaction that revealed to the analyst an analysand’s transference situation and, thus, the way to interpret the main resistance and its underlying fears.⁷

Bertha, the analysand (whom the analyst described as a very intelligent and friendly young woman), one day told him of a conversation she had had with the analyst’s daughter, who was 5 years old, and whom she had met at the door of the house. The conversation was amusing and Bertha laughed warmly while she recounted it; against his better judgment the analyst soon joined in laughing. Bertha continued to describe, one after the other, the little girl’s amusing remarks, and they both continued to laugh. However, at some point, the analyst was assailed by a doubt: “Could Bertha be making fun of me – he wondered – making up witticisms and pretending they are my daughter’s? Could she be playing with my paternal pride, making me believe that the wit displayed by my daughter is in fact hers?”

This paranoid fear, on the one hand, and on the other, the hypomanic state manifested by both the analysand and the analyst, led the latter to commit a serious breach in technique: he interrupted the analysand and asked her whether her last remark was actually her daughter’s, or rather her own. Bertha took offense at the analyst’s distrust and, judging from the way she reacted, the analyst clearly perceived that Bertha’s account had been faithful. He felt guilty and wondered how he could have made such a blunder. He told himself that, in truth, he seldom distrusted his analysands, and neither did he fear being made fun of by any of them. However, this had been the case with Bertha, therefore he could suppose that his paranoid reaction, albeit wrong as to the point when it occurred, was nevertheless not wholly arbitrary; rather, it constituted a countertransference response, which in a sense was appropriate to one of the analysand’s transference states. He immediately remembered that he had every reason to distrust Bertha, because during the first stage of analysis (for six months) she had deliberately concealed a very important aspect of her life from him. At the same time, the analyst felt that there was also a current motive: his paranoid distrust was a reaction to Bertha’s strong tendency to despise, dominate, and make fun of him, a tendency he had previously perceived and that he considered to be a defense against a basic situation of dependence through the inversion of this situation (by means of “manic defenses” against paranoid anxieties through identification with the persecutors). The analyst’s paranoid reaction showed him how strong Bertha’s “manic defenses” must have been, and subsequent analysis confirmed this.

It could also be supposed that the analyst’s question had affected her so deeply because she reproached herself for having been somewhat insincere or something equivalent to that. Bertha confirmed this interpretation by saying that she had concealed something important in the previous session: she was no longer interested in Roberto, her latest “flirt.”⁸ She later added that she had decided to withdraw her affection from Roberto when she realized how little understanding she received from him. While Bertha was speaking, the analyst perceived that he continued to feel guilty about his technical blunder, or, rather, at his aggression toward Bertha. And it was precisely this perception that led him to listen with closer attention to the kind of mood she was in that day, which led him to feel that, beneath her accusation, apparently so truthful, of Roberto, there was a depressive state that (in view of what Bertha said next) the analyst considered to be a consequence of the aggression he himself had shown toward her. However, he had a reason to connect his own aggression with that of Bertha’s superego, because if Bertha had not cruelly accused herself of insincerity the analyst’s words would hardly have hurt her so much. In other words, Bertha’s latent depression was due to the aggression of her own superego, and the analyst perceived the magnitude of this aggression through the magnitude of his own feelings of guilt over his aggressive behavior. On then leading Bertha to analyze her depression, it was seen that the accusation directed at Roberto was concealing the wish to find an excuse to stop seeing him. However, it was this behavior, which had led her to “pass from one man to the next,” that meant she unconsciously felt like a prostitute; and thus her superego and – through projection – her analyst as well, were felt to condemn and despise her.

It can be seen how the two most conspicuous countertransference reactions in this session pointed toward Bertha’s most significant transference situations, and to the resistances connected to them. The danger of falling into a frustrating affective and libidinal dependence was Bertha’s worst fear, a fear that led her to adopt the opposite behavior both within and outside analysis: she was haughty so as not to feel inferior to others; she faked independence and coldness to avoid depending on others; she laughed at people in order to prevent becoming the butt of everyone’s jokes, and so forth. The analyst had reacted with distrust to these defensive tendencies and it was the awareness of his own reaction that led him to analyze Bertha’s manic defenses and their underlying paranoid fears.

On the other hand, Bertha’s neurotic independence and repression of affects – which had led her to “pass from one man to the next,” and which included all her hatred toward the seductive and frustrating objects of her basic dependence – made her feel intensely guilty. Her behavior in analysis was also determined by this manic defense, and for this reason Bertha unconsciously felt accused and hated by her analyst. The analyst felt an enormous sense of guilt when he was actually aggressive toward Bertha; that is, when a real occasion to be aggressive presented itself. Thus, the analyst’s feelings of guilt – which on the one hand were inappropriate to the aggression committed, but, on the other, were appropriate to Bertha’s depression – became a guide to an analysis of the aggression of Bertha’s moral superego against her ego, where she had introjected the seductive and frustrating primary objects (the “primary persecutors”). These feelings also proved useful in analyzing her “secondary paranoid anxieties,” that is, the counter-aggression (retaliation) of the (internal) objects that she frustrated with her hypomanic behavior.

In reality, the analyst had already perceived this aspect of the transference situation on previous occasions through his countertransference reactions. His annoyance at Bertha’s apparent lack of libidinal and affective bonds (owing to the repression of her profound fixation to the primary objects, which she only appeared to transfer to the analyst without actually doing so) had taught him to understand the transference situation. The analyst’s annoyance was, roughly, the mirror of Bertha’s superego criticizing her behavior, while her aggression and pseudo-independence were the defensive (and retaliatory) responses to the frustrations she had borne in her libidinal relationship with her primary objects.

To sum up, (1) the analyst’s paranoid anxiety (distrust) drew his attention to Bertha’s manic defenses; that is, it showed him Bertha’s identification with the persecutors through which she had inverted the basic (paranoid) situation, placing the analyst in the position of the one being persecuted. And (2), the analyst’s feeling of annoyance (aggression) as a reaction to his own anxiety pointed out to him the aggression of Bertha’s superego against her “bad” ego; that is, it showed him Bertha’s feelings of guilt about her manic behavior.

This example shows, above all, that the content of the countertransference reaction can teach us about the content of the transference situation. In addition, the countertransference situation can enlighten us on another important technical issue: what should be interpreted from all the material provided by the analysand. The answer to this question is usually found in the analyst’s understanding of the analytic material, and in his knowledge of the therapeutic and pathological mechanisms, from which the interpretation needed by the analysand is derived. It is empathy that ought to indicate this need by directing the analyst toward the core of the situation and its affective tone. However, empathy is sometimes interfered with by countertransference reactions, which overlap with the former; that is, with the analyst’s identification with the ego and the id of the analysand. In situations such as these, paying attention not only to the nature but also to the intensity of certain countertransference reactions could prove helpful. For example: a young university student who sought analysis due to an obsessional neurosis one day told his analyst that he was reading the works of Freud and was in doubt as to whether this was right or wrong. A year before, shortly after he had begun analysis, the analyst had suggested that he interrupt his psychoanalytic reading for a while. With the purpose of clarifying the present situation, the analyst told him he no longer needed to follow his suggestion, to which the analysand replied: “Thank you so much.” This phrase made the analyst feel intensely guilty, in particular due to the note of “self pity” in the analysand’s voice. The analyst felt that he had always been an extraordinarily cruel tyrant toward the analysand. This feeling, which was a far cry from what was actually going on in the analytic situation, clearly showed the amount of sadism present in the objects (either real or fantasized) that the analysand transferred to the analyst. The great intensity of the countertransference reaction showed the analyst what was important and needed to be analyzed.

Likewise, countertransference feelings frequently indicate whether the analysand is “moving on,” that is, if he is overcoming resistances or not. For instance, when the analyst actually feels the aggressions of an analysand whose aggressiveness had been blocked until then, and if, perhaps, he is feeling offended, or guilty over what the analysand reproaches him with, he can quite rightly conclude that the analysand has begun to fear him less and, therefore, that he is making progress, whereas boredom in the analyst is, most of the time, a sure sign of the resistance of the analysand. It goes without saying that each of these countertransference reactions is never completely “objective”: both the subject and the object play a part in them. Complementary series should not be overlooked when considering this issue. For instance, the stronger the analyst’s disposition toward paranoid reactions, the more irritated he will be by the analysand’s resistance or sadomasochism. On the other hand, the analyst will rarely feel annoyed by chance; rather, he will sense, albeit distortedly, part of the unconscious reality of the analysand.⁹ However, while the subjective factor was the main focus of my previous paper (on the countertransference, its pathological mechanisms, and their negative consequences), in this one the focus is on what countertransference can tell us about the object and the analysand; that is, I am emphasizing the positive contribution that countertransference could make to the treatment.¹⁰

I will now present another example, which illustrates how a countertransference reaction showed the analyst the direction he needed to take in the treatment. Pedro, a young man, sought analysis due to impotence and, despite the fact that he was already free of symptoms, continued analysis owing to the remaining difficulties he had with women. In the days before the session in question he had, for the very first time, started going out with an obviously better object. Until then, he had unconsciously sought, and found, women who attracted and frustrated him, but this girl he was seeing was far healthier and more caring. In the session we are discussing, Pedro told the analyst he had taken the girl to a fancy restaurant and he complained of the cost: “But women – he said – like expensive restaurants.” Later he mentioned that the girl had asked him if he knew what the possibility of establishing an intimate relationship with her would entail. He replied with a long speech: he knew he was not supposed to see other women, and he was willing to accept that. He pursued certain activities (study group meetings), but only once a week. In addition, he said he knew he was not expected to leave her soon after the start of their romance, but, on the other hand, that it would be too early to consider marriage. And on he went in the same vein.

As the analyst had known the analysand for quite some time, he knew what had happened: everything Pedro told the girl was in fact directed at the imago of the “mother-moloch” he had projected onto her.¹¹ There was every indication that the girl had little in common with the features of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Observations on countertransference as a technical instrument: Preliminary communication
• 2. Transference-countertransference: A testimony
• 3. “Well, you’d better ask them”: The countertransference position at the crossroads
• 4. Countertransference: A contemporary approach from the River Plate region
• 5. Freud’s countertransference? Reviewing the case histories with modern ideas of transference and countertransference
• 6. Misconceptions, enactment, and interpretation
• 7. Transference on the couch
• 8. Some reflections on transference and countertransference: The effects of social political violence in children, in the analyst, and in the psychoanalytic process
• 9. Transference and countertransference in child analysis
• 10. The psychoanalytic covenant: “Human sacrifice” as the hidden order of transference ↔ countertransference
• 11. Transference – or caesura?
• 12. Transference minute to minute: Analysis of an analysis
• 13. Nonverbal cues in transference-countertransference interactions: Reflections on their role in the analytic process
• 14. The analyst’s self-reflective participation and the transference-countertransference matrix
• 15. Role-reversal and the dissociation of the self: An exploration of a somewhat neglected transference-countertransference dynamic
• 16. Psychoanalysis and the influencing machine: Psychoanalysis as the influencing machine
• 17. Transference and countertransference with somatic patients
• Index