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The therapist reacts with emotions to the feelings which patients direct toward him and to the memories which the patients' personalities evoke. countertransference may be described as positive when it arises from the patient's likeness to the therapist's ego ideal or to beloved figures of the therapist's past, and from the therapist's own desire to be accepted and from his need to be successful. In group therapy positive countertransference is dangerous, for it leads to favoritism, giving the members' sibling rivalry a realistic basis that prevents interpretation. The therapist is made to feel—consciously or unconsciously—discomfort, fear, or anger by patients who resemble hurtful figures of his past, by resistance (which in groups is contagious), by rivalry with an aggressive leader among the group members, by painful personal associations to happenings during the session, by a negative defense against an erotic attachment, or by frustration of his wish to help his patients and to be liked by them. The therapist then becomes a punitive rejecting parent to the group, for all members identify themselves with the target of his negative countertransference. If his aim is also research, his divisions of interest and roles may be disruptive. Countertransference is frequently ambivalent. It may be authoritative by identification with a father figure or by overcompensation for passivity.
Groups induce anxiety in the therapist because of the threat each member offers to the competitiveness of the others and because the members fear that