Key Papers on Countertransference. Edited by Robert Michels, Liliane Abensour, Claudio Laks Eizirik, and Richard Rusbridger. London:  Karnac, 2002.  149 pp.

Perhaps one of the most interesting ways to map the history of psychoanalysis is through the evolution of the concept of countertransference. It is a subject that has created much controversy, anxiety, and fascination. It is even possible to map divergent schools of thought by their use and relationship to countertransference. Initially viewed by Freud as the unhelpful stirring up in the analyst of unanalyzed and potentially disruptive impulses, it has developed into a central, sometimes the central, aspect of treatment, and is commonly accepted as a potentially mutative force in the work. This book succeeds in providing a comprehensive yet concise historical overview of the uses of countertransference, as well as an informative summary of current perspectives on the concept in different intellectual communities around the world.

Starting with North America, Theodore Jacobs reveals how countertransference has come to take such a central place in contemporary theory. Interestingly, he traces both the two divergent currents in the understanding of countertransference to Freud, the first being the more familiar view that the analyst is limited by his or her own neuroses. However, Jacobs also traces the opposite view of countertransference—that it is not only inevitable, but a way to access the unconscious of the patient—to Freud's recognition that analysis involves unconscious communication between the two participants. He suggests that Freud's advice to the analyst to attune his or her unconscious to that of the patient, much as a telephone receiver is attuned to the transmitting apparatus, paved the way for the idea that countertransference contains elements of the unconscious of the patient, and that unconscious transmission is a two-way street.

Jacobs presents a rather exceptional overview of the history and current usage of countertransference. In a fair and unbiased manner, he traces the origins of current viewpoints back to Ferenczi, Stern, Deutsch, Glover, Strach