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IF I WERE TO DRAW AN ANALOGY FROM THE FIELD OF BIONOMICS, the term countertransference would be an endangered species in psychoanalytic semasiology. On the other hand, there are those who feel that the term should be restricted to one territory, "when the analyst uses his child patient as a transference object" (Maenchen, 1970, p. 194). At the other end of the spectrum, countertransference becomes vague, blurred, and perhaps even useless when it is seen as everything experienced by the analyst toward his patient or within the analytic situation. Between the two widely spaced extremes, a range of concepts has evolved over the course of more than three quarters of a century of psychoanalytic history. The multiplicity of meanings suggested during this development necessitates a presentation of my current usage of the term. During the course of my career, my views have altered, and even now I offer only a tentative impression which invites contributions to help build a more meaningful structure for this concept.
Countertransference is here defined as a complex phenomenon