Quotes About Countertransference

Countertransference is described as the therapist's reaction to the patient's transference. Like transference, countertransference is a reflection of earlier events and unresolved conflicts in the therapist's own life that are now "projected" onto the therapy situation.

W]e are basically more similar to our patients than we are different from them. The psychological mechanisms in pathological states are merely extensions of principles involved in normal developmental functioning. Doctor and patient are both human beings. [...] [C]ountertransference in the psychiatrist and transference in the patient are essentially identical processes - each unconsciously experiences the other as someone from the past.

Countertransference: the helper's reactions to the client that originate in the unresolved issues of the helper.

The narcissistic lesions absorbed by senior training analysts through the phenomenon of "unhooked telephones" may increase their countertransference reactions to their own candidates and the displacement of these reactions onto other training analysts and candidates, thereby increasing their paranoid reactions toward the institution.