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In the Introduction to this volume, Stefana begins to orient us to his task by offering an answer to a perennial question—given that there is more than one psychoanalysis, what is the “common ground in this kaleidoscopic panorama?” (p. 1). He offers that what binds us together despite our rich diversity consists of transference, countertransference, and the psychoanalytic setting. As its title indicates, this book is focused on countertransference. He informs his reader that he begins this exploration with “the original notion put forward by Sigmund Freud and leads to those proposed by analysts of the British object relations school (including … Kleinian and Independent groups and by some American analysts heavily influenced by them)” (p. 1).
Beginning in Chapter 1 and continuing throughout the volume—until the final chapter in which Stefana offers us his own reflections—the author traces the use of the term countertransference in a chronological manner. As he does so, he takes us on a journey through psychoanalytic time. As we learn about countertransference, we are also offered its context. Stefana is keen to trace not only how the early pioneers both innovated and were influenced by each other (e.g., how Ferenczi and Jung influenced Freud and Freud them) but also tracing in some ways the lineage and contemporaneous influences of subsequent generations of analysts as well. We also learn briefly of early divisions within psychoanalysis—of the acrimony between the London School and the Vienna School as well as of the influence of the numerical majority of the British Psychoanalytical Society, the so-called Middle Group. Stefana also contextualizes the development of psychoanalysis within the greater cultural context of the two world wars. After completing Chapter 2, one cannot help but be amazed that this nascent field survived and eventually thrived despite deprivations, deployments, bombings, losses, and divided lands.
As Stefana observes in the concluding chapter a