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Probably no clinical situation brings questions of actuality and illusion into clearer focus than the white heat of a transference neurosis and the common though much less talked about reciprocal “countertransference neurosis,” which both impedes the former's resolution and is often the material out of which the transference iatrogenically fashions itself. Skolnikoff writes aptly that intersubjectivity and more than transitory identification of analyst with patient is an often unacknowledged aspect of psychoanalytic processes. Yet even in the throes of such turmoil, all clinicians operate with the necessity that the patient hear some of the analyst's words, some of the time, as illuminating his or her transference illusion, rather than as only belonging to it, and that the analyst conduct himself to make this a possibility for the patient.
All our contributors comment on an aspect of providing this necessity. To see their commentaries in context, let us consider some clinical material, selected precisely because it demonstrates a low-grade but significant countertransference interference that, at the time of the sessions presented, had not been recognized by the analyst who later reported it to me. This interference reflects the powerful way in which the analytic process has been deeply engaged by both analyst and analysand and illustrates the inevitable, reciprocal, and reverberating effects of transference and countertransference forces on the unfolding process. Although this material may not represent an instance of ideal technique — itself probably an illusion — it represents a common enough actual