We have surveyed the various emotional responses of the analyst of children and adolescents to his patients and their parents, as well as to parent-child interactions. The term countertransference, we assert, should be limited to the analyst's transference reactions to the transferences of his patients or their parents. It is useful to distinguish countertransference from transference, identification, narcissistic attachment and responses, including empathy, to patients or parents as real people.

In clarifying the therapist's reactions we discussed the influence of the personality and gender of both analyst and child. We also considered the effects of the developmental stages the child traverses, the cognitive levels of analysand and analyst and the significance of the termination phase of analysis.