Seminar 3. 10 July 1977. The Italian Seminars

Q: I'd like to ask Dr Bion if he can tell us more about his ideas on the countertransference, because it seems to me that this is the particular type of noise in the analyst's mind that can be picked up in the psychoanalytic experience. I wonder if it might also contain musical elements, and if so if we should adjust our minds like a high-fidelity system that can not only extract the signal from the noise, but also act like a resonance chamber and allow us to receive the entire range of acoustic stimuli, even if that means that the clarity of the melody is lost.

Bion: The idea of the transference and the countertransference has been extremely productive, provocative and growth-stimulating. But, like every really good idea, like anything which provokes or stimulates growth, it makes itself out of date at once. When individuals are exposed to the analytic experience for the first time, they don't understand what that experience is or what its name is. Nor does the analyst say, “You are experiencing transference to me” – that is a technical term which is useful for people who have already had the experience of psychoanalytic training. After a time, though, the novice begins to understand that the analyst is drawing attention to an actual experience which he is having. If he is becoming an analyst, then he may reach a point where we could say, “That is what we mean by transference – that is a transference manifestation. Your feeling that I am your father or mother can be compared with other ideas you have: you can bring together both the idea that I am your mother or father and the idea that I am a stranger whom you do not know. Then you can decide for yourself who or what you really think I am – that is your affair. In that way a new idea is born. The idea

that you had before – namely, that I am a blood relation, a father or mother – is transient; it is a temporary idea on the journey of your life. From that point of view the technical term “transference” can be seen