The concept of counter-transference, already put forward by Freud and Ferenczi, clearly required a certain period of incubation before becoming a dominant technique. The author shows that both Strachey’s interpretation of the transference and the countertransference technique stem from Kleinian metapsychology. With this metapsychology, the technique of countertransference was increasingly recognized, against the initial wishes of Freud and Melanie Klein. The influence of Bion’s theories subsequently took us a step further in our understanding of countertransference. His idea of considering emotional transformations as the focal point of analytical work gave new impetus to the technique of countertransference. The author offers a critical analysis of this development and asks whether it moves us away from a psychoanalysis based on the exchange of words, infantile sexuality, Oedipal conflicts, distortion and the process of après-coup.