An Antisemitic Transference and Countertransference

The author presents a clinical psychoanalysis in which his Jewish patient fears that her non-Jewish analyst hates her for being Jewish. Antisemitic expressions of hate toward the analyst have been well-documented, but a fear of the analyst's hateful transference to the patient has not been previously examined in a published report. This transference led to an impasse in the treatment and prompted exploration of countertransference on the analyst's part; was he, unconsciously, expressing any religious hatred? The author examines a technical question of whether such a transference can be analyzed in the usual way as a displacement of infantile trauma? Or do the antisemitic aspects of the transference need to be examined and understood in their cultural and religious implications first and then analyzed as a real aspect in the external world before its infantile roots can be exposed? In this particular case, the author concludes that the latter approach is necessary and useful to facilitating clinical progress. The author suggests that this approach may be applicable to other analyses where there are racial, class, or religious differences and the patient develops fears about the analyst's attitude. The author offers this case as an example of the necessary integration of cultural and sociological issues into the classical model of intrapsychic conflict.