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Analysts working with narcissistic transference frequently find that the treatment has hopelessly foundered, the patient has been “lost somehow,” that they themselves have developed disturbing symptoms, or even that their own personal lives have become seriously disrupted. It is now understood that these phenomena are often linked to the presence of unresolved narcissistic countertransference resistances.
The modern analytic supervisor recognizes the fact that the supervisee may become resistant to the supervision itself when exploration of the case process stimulates awareness of the therapist's own impulses. This resistance may be analogous to the countertransference resistance the supervisee has developed in the analytic relationship with the patient. As the resistance is experienced, explored, analyzed and resolved in the supervisory relationship, the supervisee develops the ability to have the thoughts and feelings necessary to relate therapeutically to the patient.
I had occasion to learn about this process first hand, when I found myself compulsively repeating in the relationship with my supervisor what my narcissistically disturbed patient was repeating in the analytic relationship with me. Belief that I was in the grip of a powerful induction did nothing to release me. The resistance was resolved only when I got to the root of it in a resistance to my own analysis which blocked the feelings needed in my work with the patient.
The resistance to supervision and countertransference resistance to the patient contained the same emotional structure—both served to defend against impulses I was not free to work through in analysis. I found that as my inability to function analytically was