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I for one have absolutely no doubt that psychoanalytic research […] grows in direct proportion to the capacity of the analysts to absorb and assimilate whatever accrues to them in the so-called counter-transference to their patients. Merely objective observation of the analytic patient at best leads to arid confirmation of established dogma and does not lead to any new discovery or extension of psycho-analytic theory or skill. […] the growth of psycho-analytic theory and technique is inherently dependent on the analyst's dual capacity both to be involved with the patient's illness and able to distance himself from it for the benefit of both himself and the patient.
Starting from clinical experiences with adults, adolescents and children, this paper intends to attempt to describe a specific functioning of countertransference - distinct from that observed by Heimann (1950) and from what was subsequently traced back to the mechanism of projective identification - which enables us to investigate the patient's experiences of the self. A number of different echoes have progressively alternated and superimposed themselves as I pondered this text: my experiences on the effect that the most disturbed and primitive levels of adult patients have on the analyst's mind; certain considerations of mine concerning acting out in children and in adolescents; the relationship between countertransference and the person of the analyst (Bonaminio, 2008), as well as the unexpected question that Bollas (1994) puts to himself on hearing of the arrival of a new patient: «Do I really want to take on a new personality again?».
Conducting an extensive review of the considerable literature on countertransference, starting from the pioneering work of the Balints (1939), Winnicott (1947),