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In this paper I have discussed some thoughts about the effect of the analyst's pregnancy on her patients, using material from my own experience. In the first part of the paper I have examined some of the issues evoked in the countertransference especially in the first trimester of pregnancy, when, because of my concern about the health of the foetus I was reluctant to inform patients of my state. In the latter part of the paper I have focused on some of my patients' responses as expressed in the transference: in
particular on the question of how patients dealt with learning of and thinking about my pregnancy, which involved a threat to the sense of unity, fusion and non-separateness from me that in some cases were of paramount importance. To do this I have discussed at some length clinical material relating to two patients, the first a woman whose own pregnancy followed mine, in an imitative fashion that both denied any difference between us and also allowed her to develop her capacity to be a mother; the second a man who initially understood my pregnancy as rejecting of him, persecuting and guilt-provoking, and saw it as an event either unthinkable and/or to be dealt with omnipotently.