Somatic Violence and the Therapeutic Relationship

For this Annual Day in Psychoanalysis we have been invited to choose any aspect of the therapeutic relationship in order to demonstrate passionate feelings that may arise in the analyst's countertransference. My first reaction to this theme was that consciously I have always been more preoccupied with those of my analysands who awaken in me feelings of irritation, anger, boredom, even hatred—with the concomitant fear that such affects might interfere with the treatment or become perceptible to the analysand. Those toward whom I experience tender or erotic feelings have never preoccupied me in the same way. As a result I regarded the invitation as a challenge to explore this aspect of countertransference Before coming to the central theme, I should like to make a few comments on the concept of countertransference.

For many years I have maintained that the term countertransference would be better named the analyst's transference: a transference that may mirror the patient's transference to the analyst or may run counter to it, but in any case will stem from many different hidden sources within the analyst that pre-exist the encounter with the analysand.

In this context I recall vividly a session with one of my own analysands, a philosopher well versed in psychoanalytic literature, who, just before his session, had happened to read the report of a panel on