De-mystifying the Countertransference in the Couple Analytic Process

There is something unknowable and therefore mysterious about the way in which one unconscious interacts with another. But this interaction is also at the heart of the psychoanalytic process and countertransference is now considered as ‘an instrument of research into the patients unconscious’ (Heimann, 1950).
But what is countertransference and how does the analyst access it and utilise it in the analytic process? Since Heimann’s landmark paper, attention has been drawn to the way that the patient unconsciously projects into particular aspects of the analyst (Brenman Pick, 1985) or as Bion describes, hones in on the analyst’s ‘valencies’ (Bion, 1961). The analyst ‘feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognise, in somebody else’s phantasy’ (Bion, 1959). Joseph has described the way in which patients ‘act out with us in the transference, trying to get us to act out with them’ (Joseph, 1975) and a similar idea was described by Sandler in his notion of ‘role-responsiveness’(Sandler, 1976).
In these interactions, the inner world of our patients become, at least to some extent, accessible but this requires psychic work on behalf of the analyst. Working through the countertransference involves being attuned to feelings in ourselves which we cannot easily make sense of, subtle and not so subtle enactments, a self-reflective capacity, finding a third position and making links between the countertransference in the patient’s or couple’s material and history.
In couples therapy the countertransference can sometimes feel more complicated as the therapist might have intense feelings that seem difficult to understand in terms of the couple’s inner world and relationship. In this situation the therapist needs the help of couple analytic concepts. I suggest a ‘couple state of mind’ provides a framework for working through the countertransference with a couple.

1) Describe one of the ways in which the concept of countertransference has developed since Freud and Klein’s original use

2) Describe some of the stages involved in working through the countertransference

3) Describe the two intersecting areas of transference and countertransference in working with couples