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ROBERT TYSON INTRODUCED THE PANEL by reviewing the evolution of psychoanalytic thinking about countertransference. Freud's explicit remarks on the subject were few, though he seemed to refer to countertransference implicitly in various places when speaking about interferences with the analyst's attunement to his own unconscious responses. Freud regarded countertransference as an impediment to analytic work. He pointed first to manifestations of unconscious countertransference, and later added that countertransference enactment could involve conscious thought, citing the example of giving in to tender feelings toward a patient. Initially, Freud recommended self-analysis as the primary method of dealing with countertransference. Subsequently, he came to believe that self-analysis alone is insufficient, and suggested that training analysis be considered a requirement.
Since Freud, psychoanalytic ideas about countertransference have developed in four basic directions. The first has been expansion from a narrow focus on the analyst's unconscious responses to a view that encompasses preconscious and conscious responses to the analytic situation as well. A second direction, closely related to the first, has been the shift from Freud's limited definition of countertransference as the analyst's reactions to the patient's transferences to him, to a broader usage that includes virtually all the analyst's feelings about and attitudes toward the patient, together with their many and varied determinants. Some analysts have even considered the concept of countertransference too confining and ambiguous, and have suggested putting it aside. Much of the trend toward expansion has arisen from psychoanalytic work with more disturbed patients, in which the analyst's personal reactions often play a prominent role from the