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One technical term which is often used, and probably abused, is ‘counter-transference’. It is a term which should apply to the unconsciously motivated feeling which the analyst is having about the analysand in the analytic situation. The term should be correctly used, as should all terms used by the psychoanalyst. This is not a pedantic matter; it is dictated by the fact that our chosen tools, as it were, are words. If we use them wrongly we soon find ourselves in the position of a sculptor using a blunt instrument.
Someone mentioned to me a boy patient who ‘doodled’ on the table as if he were writing or drawing. The analyst might find it worth while doing something of this kind on paper dating it, say, April 15th, and putting it aside. Then at a later date, say, May 1st, instead of looking at notes made in a more conventional manner, one could write down one's interpretations of the squiggles or marks made on April 15th. In that way one can make use of one's conscious activities of May 1st to interpret the unconscious productions of April 15th. Drawing upon his own conscious and unconscious, the analyst would not be confusing two different analytic procedures; they are both recognized frames of mind and there is, therefore, a technical disciplinary framework.
In contrast to this there are analysts who carry their professional activities into their homes and cause a great deal of trouble by interpreting in psychoanalytic terms the behaviour of their families. I am not suggesting that we should stop being psychoanalysts, but while you may have some psychoanalytic idea in your mind about the behaviour of a son or a daughter, or a husband or a wife, you do not have to interpret them. If I started interpreting the behaviour of members of my family I should certainly be afraid that the family
was being deprived of a father and getting an analyst instead. That may be a lucky thing for the family – or it may not – but giving psychoanalytic interpretations is part of one's