Whose Feelings First? Group Treatment as the Anaclitic Intervention

Sometimes, even though the patient is operating on a regressed level, it may be beneficial to utilize the positive anaclitic countertransferential feelings of the analyst in order to resolve resistances to maturation. Spotnitz (1983) describes these as “those feelings the patient needed to become a mature adult but did not get (the missing feelings).” The anaclitic countertransference evolves de novo only from a long-term relationship with the patient and comes about as a product of that relationship … the feelings turn out to be the very feelings of which the patient was deprived during his dependent years, yet were needed for his maturation. These feelings are not induced from the past … The anaclitic feelings have no connection with the patient's prior experience nor with the analyst's subjective history” (Liegner, 1991). In other words, the anaclitic countertransference reflects those feelings which the analyst experiences as a result of her own personality development in the face of a long-term relationship with another person. There is an evolution of interdependency which always occurs between humans when they experience feelings, which communicate the intrinsic value of one person to another.

I would like to report the usefulness of this theoretical approach as it was demonstrated in a group setting where the analyst's induced feelings and those of the other group members were used to catalyze an anaclitic maturational experience in two group members.

The group from which these examples are drawn is a male/female group that has been together in various incarnations for about 14 years. Currently there are sixteen members: six have been together more than 10 years, eight longer than 8 years, and two about 5 years. Some are in group with their spouses, others are married but in