Transference and Countertransference

[Ready for Fall 2026]

Modified: 2026-08-04 11:54 AM CDST

• 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. View it HERE
• Countertransference is when the therapist, during the course of therapy, develops positive or negative feelings toward the patient. This too 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:
    • 4.05 Sexual Intimacies With Current Patients or Clients.
      • Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with current patients or clients.
    • 4.07 Sexual Intimacies With Former Therapy Patients.
      • (a) Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with a former therapy patient or client for at least two years after cessation or termination of professional services.

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

• Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct-
  • From APA, the full text of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct are provided in linked fashion.