Transference and Countertransference Today


Book Description

Why has Heinrich Racker’s original work on transference and countertransference proven so valuable? With a passionate concern for the field created by the meeting of analyst and patient, and an abiding interest in the central importance of transference and countertransference in analytic practice, Robert Oelsner has brought together the thought and work of seventeen eminent analysts from Europe, the United States, and Latin America. In new essays commissioned for this volume, the writers have set aside the lines that can often divide psychoanalytic groups and schools in order to examine in depth the variety of approaches and responses that characterize the best analytic practice today. The result is a collection of fresh, contemporary material centred on the two interrelated subjects – transference and countertransference – that make up the core of psychoanalytic work. Both in the clarity of their language and in moving clinical examples the writers reveal, in distinctively personal ways, how Heinrich Racker’s original thought, which brought the analyst’s unconscious responses into the equation, has allowed them to evolve their own perspectives. Yet it is particularly interesting to find unexpected parallels among the chapters that point toward a shared vision. Clearly, whether in work with adults or children, transference and countertransference are now seen as encompassing a field that embraces both participants in the consulting room. Making Transference and Countertransference Today still more valuable as a resource for teachers and students are several major contributions by authors whose work is not otherwise readily available in English. Psychoanalysts and others will find few other books that present such a thoughtful picture of these crucial and fascinating analytic topics.




Transference and Countertransference


Book Description

This book presents a classic examination of transference phenomena and focuses on the development of psychoanalytic technique and theory. It addresses a perceived gap between psychoanalytic knowledge and its capacity to effect psychological transformation in a patient.




Countertransference and the Therapist's Inner Experience


Book Description

Countertransference and the Therapist’s Inner Experience explores the inner world of the psychotherapist and its influences on the relationship between psychotherapist and patient. This relationship is a major element determining the success of psychotherapy, in addition to determining how and to what extent psychotherapy works with each individual patient. Authors Charles J. Gelso and Jeffrey A. Hayes present the history and current status of countertransference, offer a theoretically integrative conception, and focus on how psychotherapists can manage countertransference in a way that benefits the therapeutic process. The book contains completely up-to-date data from existing research findings, and illuminates the universality of countertransference across all psychotherapies and psychotherapists. Contents include: *the operation of countertransference across three predominant theory clusters in psychotherapy; *leading factors involved in the management of countertransference; and *valuable recommendations for psychotherapy practitioners and researchers. Professionals in clinical and counseling psychology, psychiatry, social work, and counseling will benefit from this volume. The book is also appropriate for graduate students in these fields.




Soul Retreats for Students


Book Description

Each meditation gives the reader an intimate, meaningful, and uplifting devotional reading and encourages reflection through scriptures, poems, and inspiring quotes to refresh the reader.




A Disturbance in the Field


Book Description

"This outstanding volume of essays presents an extraordinary synthesis of classical and contemporary concepts and methods of psychoanalysis, with immediate relevance to clinical practice. The author's encyclopedic knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature brings the reader into the exciting center of current clinical psychoanalysis. The extensive clinical illustrations, with detailed evaluation of his participation in the analytic work and particular attention to its imperfections, form the heart of this book. These clinical discussions, more than anything else, highlight the power of the modern focus on countertransference and the analyst's contributions to the psychoanalytic dialogue."ùAnton O. Kris, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School --Book Jacket




Transference and Countertransference


Book Description

Since Freud's initial papers on transference and countertransference, these vast and inexhaustible subjects have occupied psychoanalysts. Transference and countertransference, the essence of the patient/analyst relationship, are concepts so central to pschoanalysis that, to our minds, they transcend theoretical orientation and, thus, can be seen as a unifying focus of psychoanalysis. However differently theoretical traditions conceptualize the transference, or disagree as to when and how to interpret it in our everyday analytic work, we all embrace the phenomenon as vital to psychic change.




Transference and Countertransference Today


Book Description

Why has Heinrich Racker’s original work on transference and countertransference proven so valuable? With a passionate concern for the field created by the meeting of analyst and patient, and an abiding interest in the central importance of transference and countertransference in analytic practice, Robert Oelsner has brought together the thought and work of seventeen eminent analysts from Europe, the United States, and Latin America. In new essays commissioned for this volume, the writers have set aside the lines that can often divide psychoanalytic groups and schools in order to examine in depth the variety of approaches and responses that characterize the best analytic practice today. The result is a collection of fresh, contemporary material centred on the two interrelated subjects – transference and countertransference – that make up the core of psychoanalytic work. Both in the clarity of their language and in moving clinical examples the writers reveal, in distinctively personal ways, how Heinrich Racker’s original thought, which brought the analyst’s unconscious responses into the equation, has allowed them to evolve their own perspectives. Yet it is particularly interesting to find unexpected parallels among the chapters that point toward a shared vision. Clearly, whether in work with adults or children, transference and countertransference are now seen as encompassing a field that embraces both participants in the consulting room. Making Transference and Countertransference Today still more valuable as a resource for teachers and students are several major contributions by authors whose work is not otherwise readily available in English. Psychoanalysts and others will find few other books that present such a thoughtful picture of these crucial and fascinating analytic topics.




Psychotherapy: An Erotic Relationship


Book Description

Psychotherapy: An Erotic Relationship challenges the traditional belief that transference and countertransference are merely forms of resistance which jeopardize the therapeutic process. David Mann shows how the erotic feelings and fantasies experienced by clients and therapists can be used to bring about a positive transformation. Combining extensive clinical material with theoretical insights and new research on infants, the author traces erotic development back to the parent-child relationship, drawing parallels between this relationship and the therapist/client dyad. Individual chapters explore the function of the erotic within the unconscious, pre-Oedipal and Oedipal material, homoeroticism in therapy, sexual intercourse as a metaphor for psychological change, the primal scene and the difficulties of working with perversions.




The Therapeutic Relationship


Book Description

Jan Wiener makes a central distinction between working 'in' the transference and working 'with' the transference, advocating a flexible approach that takes account of the different kinds of attachment patients can make to their therapists.




Coasting in the Countertransference


Book Description

Winner of the 2009 Goethe Award for Psychoanalytic Scholarship! Irwin Hirsch, author of Coasting in the Countertransference, asserts that countertransference experience always has the potential to be used productively to benefit patients. However, he also observes that it is not unusual for analysts to 'coast' in their countertransferences, and to not use this experience to help treatment progress toward reaching patients' and analysts' stated analytic goals. He believes that it is quite common that analysts who have some conscious awareness of a problematic aspect of countertransference participation, or of a mutual enactment, nevertheless do nothing to change that participation and to use their awareness to move the therapy forward. Instead, analysts may prefer to maintain what has developed into perhaps a mutually comfortable equilibrium in the treatment, possibly rationalizing that the patient is not yet ready to deal with any potential disruption that a more active use of countertransference might precipitate. This 'coasting' is emblematic of what Hirsch believes to be an ever present (and rarely addressed) conflict between analysts’ self-interest and pursuit of comfortable equilibrium, and what may be ideal for patients’ achievement of analytic aims. The acknowledgment of the power of analysts’ self-interest further highlights the contemporary view of a truly two-person psychology conception of psychoanalytic praxis. Analysts’ embrace of their selfish pursuit of comfortable equilibrium reflects both an acknowledgment of the analyst as a flawed other, and a potential willingness to abandon elements of self-interest for the greater good of the therapeutic project.




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