Transference and Countertransference: A Unifying Focus of Psychoanalysis

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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction -- Prelude -- Why reconstruct? Perspectives on reconstruction within the transference -- Here and now interpretations -- Sexuality and the analytic couple -- From Hades to Oedipus: from psychotic to erotic transference and beyond -- A five-bar gate: love and hate in the structure of the mind -- Terror, impasse, hope: fragmentation as resistance -- Phobic attachments: internal impediments to change -- Two impulses to end an analysis: exploring the trasference and countertransference -- The elusive concept of analytic survival

About the Author :
Jean Arundale is a training and supervising analyst for the British Psychoanalytic Association (BPA) and the British Psychotherapy Foundation. In the BPA, she served for five years as Chair of the Scientific Committee and a member of the Board. She is a former editor of the 'British Journal of Psychotherapy'. She is primarily in private practice but also works part-time as a consultant psychotherapist in the NHS, heading a psychodynamic psychotherapy service at Guy's Hospital. She has presented papers at University College London and European Psychoanalytical Federation conferences, and has taught, published, and edited variously in the field of psychoanalysis. Debbie Bandler Bellman is a psychoanalyst and child and adolescent psychotherapist, in private practice. She is a Full Member of the British Psychoanalytic Association (BPA) and a member of the BPA Board, formerly as Honorary Secretary and currently as Chair of the Scientific Committee. She also serves on the Training Committee and teaches on the psychoanalysis training. She is a training analyst of the Association of Child Psychotherapists and a supervisor for the British Psychotherapy Foundation's child and adolescent psychotherapy training. She has published a number of papers, and is a past editor of the 'Journal of Child Psychotherapy', and has also co-edited two books with Jean Arundale.