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Little's paper begins with a clinical vignette designed apparently to illustrate, by means of an incorrect interpretation of a patient's behavior by an analyst, a type of mistake caused by a countertransference reaction. Subsequent to termination the patient, in a burst of insight, correctly interpreted not only his own behavior but also the analyst's countertransference.
The author then makes an attempt to define countertransference and raises the question of why this phenomenon is so rarely defined. She concludes that this is due largely to paranoid and phobic attitudes in the analyst toward his own feelings.
Quoting from Freud to the effect that technical progress was delayed by fear of interpreting the transference, Little wonders whether the same is not true of countertransference and suggests that we may find we have an equally valuable and indispensable tool in its correct use. The major theme of the paper is an attempt to establish the principle that correctly timed demonstrations of countertransference to the patient can 'have beneficial results, increasing the patient's confidence in the honesty and good will of the analyst, showing him to be