Therese Benedek believes that sitting behind the patient serves the analyst as a defense by permitting him to keep his personality out of the analytic situation and by helping him to keep objective his reactions to his patients. She discusses the analyst's response to being 'recognized' by his patients. Apparently some analysts are blind to this recognition and interpret all their patients' reactions to them as transference reactions. Many analysts are unaware that they stir up transference attitudes in their patients by their own countertransference. It is important that the analyst be able to recognize his own countertransference reactions so that he will neither be inhibited in his imagination nor fail to recognize the role he himself plays in causing his patient's reactions to him.