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Increasingly, cognitive therapy (CT) authors are paying attention to understanding and managing countertransference reactions. This paper critically discusses the recent assimilation of countertransference theory and technique evident in the literature. It begins by examining the factors responsible for CT's interest in countertransference, before going on to discuss the cognitive conceptualization of countertransference. Case material is used to illustrate parallels between schema-focused CT and relational psychoanalytic models. However, despite manifest similarities, it is argued that CT's rejection of the dynamic unconscious means that the respective approaches to how countertransference is understood and worked with are essentially incompatible. The psychoanalytic theory of countertransference is underpinned by a model of mind and associated therapeutic stance, the analytic attitude, which differs fundamentally from the therapeutic stance of CT. The paper concludes with a discussion of a published cognitive case study (Ellis, 2001), which is used to illustrate inherent limitations in the cognitive approach to countertransference.
GAVIN IVEY PhD trained as a clinical psychologist at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa and obtained his PhD at University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He has worked at Rhodes University, University of Natal, University of the Witwatersrand, and is currently Head of the Psychology Department and coordinator of the clinical psychology training program at Victoria University, Melbourne. He is co-editor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in South Africa and has a part-time psychotherapy and supervision practice in Melbourne, Australia. He has published numerous articles on psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a variety of international journals. He has a particular research interest in transference-countertransference phenomena and issues related to the teaching and learning of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Address for correspondence: Prof. Gavin Ivey, Victoria University, Psychology, PO Box 14428, Melbourne, Victoria 8001, Australia. []