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The Transference-Countertransference Matrix is an ambitious and promising offering. The subtitle itself, “The Emotional-Cognitive Dialogue in Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, and Supervision,” sets forth an agenda that is extensive and diverse in its scope. Regrettably the implied promise and the grand plan of this undertaking spelled out in the introduction belie the disappointment that ultimately emerges from the final product.
The central focus of this study is an examination of the interactive relationship between transference and countertransference phenomena. Following some operational definitions of transference and countertransference, the authors underscore the ubiquitous intertwining of these forms of relatedness. Although this theme is not particularly new, and countertransference traditionally is defined by its connection to the transference, the authors have very nicely emphasized this relationship. The Marshalls use a wide variety of clinical material to demonstrate their thesis as well as to describe a variety of “unconscious dialogues” or emotional communications outside the therapist-patient setting. The authors note that only in the recent past has this important interplay found a place in the corpus of psychoanalytic discourse. In their brief review of the literature, they pay special attention to the contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan and the elaborations by Searles and Fromm-Reichmann. Mention is also made of the provocative work of Merton Gill, though the most recent contributions of Jacobs and Poland are not included.