Countertransference

… to preoccupy oneself with the dream-material to the exclusion of a pressing transference re-enactment would merit a certain amount of self-inspection, on the grounds that the seemingly impersonal nature of dream-production may afford the analyst the same respite from unpleasantness as it does the patient (Glover, 1927, p. 505).

The starting-point of this paper is Kleinian and the ‘street-map’ of contemporary schools of psychoanalysis revealed in this paper inevitably reflects this personal view. I start with Klein, and move to the nearest comparisons, other object-relations views developed in British psychoanalysis.

The Atlantic divide has been wide in psychoanalysis, and ego-psychology in its early days shunned British developments. In recent years there have been several attempts at ‘escape’ from the strictures of ego-psychology. In my perceptions, those escapes conform more or less to two groups: self-psychology evolving from Kohut; and the intersubjectivists (e.g. Ogden, Renik) evolving with influences from the interpersonalists (Sullivanian) as well as a version of British object relations. We can also include the contemporary Freudians of London (Sandler, Fonagy).

Parallel to these developments has been the emerging corpus of Lacanian treatises. My acquaintance with other schools varies, reducing as we go down this list. Consequently, the detail and rigour of the paper also reduces.

The concept of countertransference retains the early meaning that Freud gave it: the neurotic transference of the analyst to the patient. He was not very interested in the issue and according to the index to the Standard Edition, Freud makes reference to countertransference in only four passages. He required that it be eliminated by the analyst's self-control. He often pictured his technical approach in the impersonal terms of the steely regard of a surgeon (1909) or even of a telephone receiver (1912). This ‘rule of abstinence’ remains today.

But about