You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Listening to this account I feel jarred right at the beginning. The lift. We are, it seems, in an institutional setting. The transference, or indeed the ‘pre-formed’ transference, is shaped by images of the extended family that is often sharper and more dramatic than in a private setting. Encountering ‘siblings’, for example, is more likely. We are alerted to the therapists' countertransference more by way of a flashing light than by an invitation into that experience. I register ‘this was extraordinarily perturbing’ in reference to someone else coming out of the lift before the couple. To the couple, to the therapists? We are not told, and, of course, cannot ask as one might in supervision. Perhaps it is just as well. Already I am thinking about a countertransference in which ‘self and other’ boundaries are not clearly marked. Perhaps they do not need to be because they are clearly felt. But I am wondering. ‘Shook hands with each of us.’ European? Very formal, or friendly, or needing or wanting physical contact. Very quickly we are in a world where separation and contact raise issues (but, as yet, only in my imagination). So, I wait.