Transference and Countertransference

Modified: 2020-10-05

Therapy is not an ordinary social exchange between individuals. Instead, it is quite different. Consider Freud's original psychoanalytic therapy. He would sit with his back to the patient while the patient lay on the couch and free associated. Imagine talking to a friend who would not answer you!

One of the characteristics of therapy is transference, where the patient begins transfer the feelings which emerge in therapy to the therapist. So, the patient may come to like or to hate the therapist. In psychoanalytic therapy, such transference is expected and is a sign of progress on the part of the patient.

The best video example of transference that I have seen is from the feature film, Ordinary People. In the climactic scene, Timothy Hutton's character, a late adolescent whose academic career has gone on hold since his older brother's death in a boating accident, is talking to his analyst, played by Judd Hirsch. Hutton's character begins to relive the last moments of his brother's life. Slowly, but surely, he begins to treat Hirsch's character like his brother. At the end of the scene, he is screaming at the analyst, "Why did you let go?", for both of the brothers were holding on to their overturned boat in a storm, and the older brother could hold on no longer. It is a powerful scene and it nicely dramatizes an extreme instance of transference.

Countertransference is when the therapist, during the course of therapy, develops positive or negative feelings toward the patient. This to is normal during therapy. However, therapists must not act on such feelings. To act on them is unethical. Sections 4.05 and 4.07 of APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct state:

Both of the principles above are designed with countertransference in mind.

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