Countertransference in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents (EFPP Clinical Monograph Series) edited by John Tsiantis, Anne-Marie Sandler, Dimitris Anastasopoulos and Brian Martindale. Published by  Karnac Books for the European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Public Health Services, London, 1996;  176 pages; 917.95.

This is a most welcome addition to the meagre literature on countertransference in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with children and adolescents which, whatever the preferred definition, has become an indispensable technical tool

for the majority of child psychotherapists. It is especially welcome as a first, in what promises to be an important series of clinical monographs on subjects relevant to psychotherapists working in the public sector, bringing together the views and experiences of practitioners from a number of European countries and working in diverse settings. Furthermore it is to be applauded as an enterprise in cooperation between member countries representing child and adolescent, individual adult and group psychotherapists.

In the Introduction Tsiantis outlines the main themes of each chapter written by the various authors: Anastasopoulos and Tsiantis, Judith Trowell, Alex Holder, Anne-Marie Sandler, François Ladame, Jacqueline Godfrind, Anne Alvarez, Didier Houzel, and John Tsiantis. The authors' differences in practice and technique, states Tsiantis, are underpinned by ‘a unified body of psychoanalytic thought’ (p. 16). The reader will find this chapter useful as a guide to the rest of the monograph.

In Chapter 1, Anastasopoulos and Tsiantis give a brief history of the development of the concept, beginning with Freud and followed by a selected review of the literature on countertransference with special reference to work with children and adolescents. They write about the relationship between countertransference and projective identification and finally conduct a more detailed discussion of factors likely to evoke countertransference reactions, and the interrelationship between them as they relate to the child, to the adolescent, to those stemming from parents and families and from the therapist herself.'

The review provides a fine balance of the definitions of countertransference from the extreme ‘totalistic’ to the ‘classicist’ view