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Countertransference (CT) is now recognized as the most important tool in psychodynamic procedures. Despite extensive practical and theoretical research on the patient's interpersonal patterns reflected in the countertransference, little is known about the therapist's contribution to this phenomenon. A difficulty in studying this aspect is the recording of a phenomenon that many researchers unconsciously understand as ego-syntonic. So far, the topic has primarily been approached through case reports by clinically active authors. This article provides a comprehensive review of the empirical research on this subject, drawing on a systematic search of scientific databases. The systematic search was performed using the electronic databases PsycINFO, PsycArticles, PubMed and PSYNDEX and finally included 10 publications in the analysis after title and abstract screening of 1037 studies. It became clear that the studies included vary significantly in their definitions of therapist contribution and countertransference as well as their attempts to measure them. To address the therapistʼs contribution in the context of countertransference events an extension of the concept of Hayes is proposed, which integrates therapist personality traits and attitudes, sociodemographic characteristics, and biographical experiences (subjective assessments versus objective information) to better capture the therapist's role in countertransference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article "Ronald Baker (1993) The Patient's Discovery of the Psychoanalyst as a New Object," Ronald Baker examines the role of transference in psychoanalysis. He emphasizes the importance of the analytic setting and refers to the works of James Strachey and Hans G. Loewald. Baker describes a case study in which he himself became the object of rejection and emphasizes the significance of surviving such attacks for potential change. He explains that the discovery of the analyst as a new object is a prerequisite for changes in the ego and its object relations. Baker compares this discovery to Christopher Bollas' concept of the "transformational object." Another work by Baker, "Finding the Neutral Position," deals with the inner work of the analyst. The article discusses the therapeutic effect of psychoanalysis and the role of transference and countertransference in analysis. It is emphasized that perceiving a new object in analysis requires careful analysis of transference. The analyst should be receptive to transferences but not act as a transference object. It is also noted that distinguishing between countertransference reaction and actual countertransference is important. The discovery of the analyst as a new object allows the patient a new perspective on their internal objects. It is emphasized that this discovery is a prerequisite for reorganizing the ego and its object relations. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines the importance of malignant regression in analytic treatment in terms of how such processes can be detected and limited as well as how they should be dealt with over the course of the treatment process. Different meanings of regression in psychoanalysis are briefly discussed, focussing on how and in which cases the treatment technique for fostering regressive processes can be helpful, namely in the perspective on regression under the aspect of an opening up or closing of an analytical space. The concepts of regression and malignant regression are considered in relation to other concepts. In this respect, the relation to an intact psychoanalytic framework proves to be pivotal as well as the perspective that malignant regression hinders a working through of negative countertransference. The article ends in a proposal for an ethical stance in psychoanalysis that consists of taking all psychologic instances into account in a balanced way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the view of the author the concept of regression has been explicitly little discussed in recent years, even though it implicitly represents a psychoanalytic concept that is known and used by everyone. She therefore recalls Balint's concept of distinguishing between malignant and benign regression and attempts to show how these two forms of regression can be distinguished clinically and through countertransference. The core of malignant regression is ultimately the lack of separation between subject and object. First of all, knowledge of the concepts, awareness of the danger of malignant regression and its limitation are decisive for dealing with regressive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the terms horizon of expectation and transitional space mentioned in the title, some basic features of the psychoanalytic cure are named. They serve as a starting point to describe the mode as well as the goal of psychoanalytic supervision. Supervision works on and with the transitional space and horizon of expectation, helps the therapist to establish them or expand them. The term supervision is subjected to a critical revision. The psychodynamic factors that have to be dealt with in supervision are presented, especially the transference and countertransference processes taking place in the supervisory relationship but also other pitfalls that can endanger supervision and that must be taken into account. Instead of a summarizing closing remark a very old Chinese story is told and used to characterize the role of supervision in psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines the irritating awareness of the culturally conditioned attachment of one's own perceptions of gender difference and identity. The article addresses the uncertainties both personal and also theoretical, when we consider gender not only as biologically natural as in Freud but also as socially, culturally and historically constructed. These irritations and (un)certainties in gender, which masquerade as certainties, become apparent in a psychoanalytic treatment of a trans man and become active in the analyst's countertransference. Being able to hold gender irritations and (un)certainties within oneself is seen as an equally important task as avoiding a slide into pathologization and standardization of the gender in the thinking of the treating psychoanalyst and in psychoanalytic discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the mutism-like falling silent of a patient in the analysis, in this article the author deals with the psychodynamic meaning of this phenomenon in the transference process. She understands falling silent here, as distinguished from the phenomenon of being silent, as an expression of a structurally early defense against unintegratedness, resulting in the collapse of language-related communication. The analytic relationship thus assumes characteristics of an adhesive pseudo-object relationship. Dealing with her countertransference, in which a sense of touch contrasted with an intense experience of meaninglessness, enabled the author to understand her sense of touch also as a countertransference resistance and to open herself to the perception of the nameless dread that was being mediated. Accompanied by theoretical reflection, this process of understanding is traced here. Based on her countertransference, the author illuminates the phenomenon of falling silent, first with regard to its possible function of forming a second skin to shield an autistic core, then in its effect on the analytic relationship, in which the analyst is deobjectified as a container and thus as a three-dimensional psychic object and finally with regard to whether the very quality of falling silent could in fact serve to communicate an ineffable, traumatically split off experience of psychic nonexistence. Emphasis is given to the special importance of the containment of the countertransference in the analysis of autistic transferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Technik. Zur Dialektik der psychoanalytischen Praxis" by Fritz Morgenthaler deals with various aspects of psychoanalysis. The author, a psychoanalyst, traveler, painter, and juggler, emphasizes the importance of the emotional offering of the analyst and the role of countertransference in the psychoanalytic relationship. He values maintaining the coherence of the analysand and creates a safe space for psychological upheavals. Morgenthaler combines various psychoanalytic theories and techniques and emphasizes the power of the unconscious in the transference during a psychoanalytic session. Psychoanalysis does not allow for progress, but rather transformations. [Extracted from the article]