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October 14, 1986
A tradition of wandering terminology is evident in psychoanalysis and is a cause for serious concern. The typical pattern is as follows: first, a term is coined; then it is used by another author in a slightly expanded or different way. This process is repeated until vastly different usages become current, some of which may contradict others. Ultimately, such a trend eliminates the time-saving value of a referential vocabulary, a human capacity that has been evolving over millennia.
I am not sure that this recklessness with denotative meanings will halt the course of psychoanalytic evolution. At the very least, it causes much needless confusion. Consider how cumbersome the word "empathy" has already become, with the need to expostulate on its myriad meanings (e.g., Reed, 1984.)
"Countertransference" is the focus of the present communication. Freud's original use of the word (1910; in German, it is Gegenuebertragung) has been expanded many times. Authors have used it to refer to the general transference to the patient by the analyst, based, in part, on his own history; the analyst's responses, neurotic or not, to the patient's transference; and ultimately to all of the analyst's reactions to the patient. However different and confusing these varied usages are, one convention holds—countertransference always refers to the analyst.
Most recently, however, another meaning has been added which I am afraid will lead to more confusion than clarification. This is Loewald's (1986) use of the word "countertransference" to refer to the patient's responses to the analyst's transference. Loewald (1986) writes: "The patient's behavior, while importantly determined by transference displacements from his past, often is triggered by the analyst's behavior or words, so that it represents also countertransference on the part of the patient" (p. 279).