Quimby Memorial Library: Transference and Countertransference: Home

TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE

Transference refers to a phenomenon within psychotherapy where a patient's displaced emotions are subconsciously projected onto a current relationship such as with their therapist. Countertransference is a redirection of the therapist's emotions onto the client. Both can threaten therapeutic progress by jeopardizing professional conduct.

This guide features QML's resources related to Transference and Countertransference, both in clinical and wider contexts. Click a tab above to view ebooks, articles, and books on this approach. While the resources provide a well-rounded survey of our holdings on the topic, they are not comprehensive. Please contact us, if you are not seeing represented here any topics, authors, or specific foci, on which you are seeking information.

You will find links to the information you need to access and effectively use the databases housing this material, at the top of each page in this guide.

EBOOKS

Featured here are some of QML's contemporary ebooks on Transference and Countertransference. In addition to these featured items, QML holds additional material on this topic and can access much more, via our interlibrary loan network. If you are not finding what you need here, please email us at askthelibrary@swc.edu.

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QML'S EBOOKS DATABASE

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Countertransference in Perspective: The Double-Edged Sword of the Patient-Therapist Emotional Relationship by Dov R. Aleksandrowicz (Editor); Anna O. Aleksandrowicz (Editor)
ISBN: 9781845197919
Publication Date: 2016
In psychoanalysis the term 'countertransference', coined by Freud, describes the complex emotional relation between therapist and patient. The term is nowadays used in a broad sense, referring to the entire range of emotions experienced by the therapist/analyst covering many types of therapeutic processes. Today's mental-health practitioners are called upon to deal with a wide variety of challenges, some of them highly emotionally-charged, such as child abuse, gender identity or catastrophic loss. The book is intended for mental health and other human service practitioners, such as physicians, educators, jurists and human resource managers.
Therapeutic Relationships: The Tripartite Model, Development and Applications to Family Systems Theory by John F. Butler
ISBN: 9781442254527
Publication Date: 2016
In this text, Butler takes an in-depth look at the development of family systems theory and how the work of Bowen, Gelso, and Meissner has shaped family psychotherapy. Family systems theory considers the family as an emotional unit in the therapeutic process and examines the therapeutic relationship in terms of its three primary components: the alliance, transference/countertransference, and the real relationship—better known as the tripartite model. Butler explores how the aspects Bowen family systems theory can provide effective methods for counseling families, couples, and individuals.
Transference and Countertransference by Debbie Bandler Bellman (Editor); Jean Arundale (Editor)
ISBN: 9781855757189
Publication Date: 2011
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.
Learning from Experience: Guidebook for Clinicians by Marilyn Charles
ISBN: 9780881634105
Publication Date: 2013
An important task facing all clinicians, and especially challenging for younger, less experienced clinicians, is to come to know oneself sufficiently to be able to register the patient's experience in useful and progressively deeper ways. In an effort to aid younger clinicians in the daily struggle to'know thyself,'Marilyn Charles turns to key ideas that have facilitated her own clinical work with difficult patients. Concepts such as'container'and'contained,'transitional space, projective identification, and transference/countertransference are introduced not as academic ideas, but as aspects of the therapeutic environment that elicit greater creativity and vitality on the therapist's part. In Charles's skillful hands, the basic ideas of Klein, Winnicott, and Bion become newly comprehensible without losing depth and richness; they come to life in the fulcrum of daily clinical encounter.
Moments of Uncertainty in Therapeutic Practice by Robert Waska
ISBN: 9780231151535
Publication Date: 2011
One of therapy's greatest challenges is the moment of transference, when a patient unconsciously transfers emotion or desire to a new and present objectin some cases the therapist. During the course of treatment, a patient's projections and the analyst's struggle to divert them can stress, distort, or contaminate the therapeutic relationship. It may lead to various forms of enactment, in which the therapist unconsciously colludes with the client in interpretation and treatment, or it can lead to projective identification, in which the client imposes negative feelings and behaviors onto the therapist, further interfering with analysis and intervention.

ARTICLES

This bibliography features peer-reviewed, searchable journals and academic articles, reporting on contemporary research, analysis, and theory related to Transference and Countertransference within a therapeutic setting. In addition to what is featured here, QML holds further material on this topic and can access much more, via our interlibrary loan network. If you are not finding what you need here, please email us at askthelibrary@swc.edu.

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QML'S ACADEMIC ARTICLES DATABASE

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At-one-ment: Beyond Transference and Countertransference by Bnaya Amid & Eytan Bachar
Publication Date: 2022
Through the inscrutable state of at-one-ment, one (be)comes to know the other from the inside, to experience the other’s experience as one’s own, rather than like one’s own. In the clinical setting, this occurrence is valuable in and of itself, even when it is not acknowledged or understood by the analytic pair, as it allows the enigmatic possibility of communicating the incommunicable that lies beyond words and relations, echoing the unique embryonic form of being and communicating. Such clinical occurrences invite us to reconsider the common formulations of transference and countertransference and move beyond their inherent notion of twoness.
Breaking Hearts: Ethically Handling Transference and Countertransference in Therapy by David B. Jenks; Megan Oka
Publication Date: 2021
This paper examines ethical principles and their application to erotic or romanticized transference and countertransference. Transference is identified as unconscious feelings of a client that are felt for another individual of significant importance such as a therapist. Countertransference describes the feelings a therapist may develop for clients they are working with throughout the course of therapy. Ethical principles that are explored consist of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, fidelity, and justice. We explore how those principles relate to romantic or sexual feelings in therapy and discuss what therapists can do to appropriately and ethically handle those feelings in therapy.
Client-centred therapeutic relationship conditions and authenticity: a prospective study by Cecelia Bayliss-Conway; Sue Price; David Murphy; Stephen Joseph
Publication Date: 2021
The aim was to investigate the association between experiencing a therapeutic relationship and subsequent authenticity. Forty-six clients completed the Barrett–Lennard Relationship Inventory (B-LRI), Relational Depth Inventory (RDI), a measure of the therapeutic alliance (ARM-5) and the Authenticity Scale (AS) at intervals over 10 therapy sessions. Higher scores on the B-LRI at sessions 3, 5 and 10 were associated with an increase in authenticity over the 10 sessions. These results provide some initial evidence in support of Rogers's (1957) theory that it is the conditions of the therapeutic relationship that lead to greater authenticity.
The Analyst’s Affect in the Therapeutic Relationship by Judy Guss Teicholz
Publication Date: 2018
As analysts, our affect, whether spoken or unspoken, infuses our words and can counter their intended meaning. This means that as analysts we are vulnerable to having unconscious elements of our affective experience enter the therapeutic relationship in ways that can disrupt our analytic functioning. Such vulnerability requires an unwavering commitment on our parts to look to ourselves whenever a roadblock emerges in any treatment relationship. The three papers under discussion here are exemplary in that they highlight this essential process of the analyst’s searching self-awareness, ongoing self-monitoring, and pro-active processing of her affective experience in the therapeutic relationship, taking responsibility for its impact on every treatment.
Countertransference types and their relation to rupture and repair in the alliance by Orya Tishby; Hadas Wiseman
Publication Date: 2022
The present study examined the associations between types of CT and therapists’ reports of ruptures and resolutions. Negative CT patterns were associated with more ruptures and less resolution. Positive patterns predicted resolution when the therapists repeated positive patterns with parents, but predicted ruptures when they tried to “repair” negative patterns with the parents. These results point to the importance of therapists’ awareness of their CT in order to deal effectively with ruptures and facilitate resolution.
Personal therapy and the personal therapist by Fredrik D. Moe; Jens Thimm
Publication Date: 2021
Personal therapy has been proposed as an aid in promoting the professional development of psychotherapists by increasing their self-awareness, self-reflexivity, and self-knowledge of the therapy process and of personal characteristics. Psychoanalysis/psychodynamic therapies, cognitive-behavioral therapies, humanistic/experiential therapies, and systemic/family therapies argue that working with the personal and professional self of the therapist is valuable in this respect. The objective of the present study is to summarize the theoretical and empirical literature on personal therapy and its effects on the professional development of therapists and on patient treatment. A systematic review of the literature was conducted and demonstrated a convergence between reported benefits from personal therapy and therapist qualities.

BOOKS

Collected here are books on Transference and Countertransference from QML's physical collection. Click a link to be taken to the book's page in the library's catalog. From there you can view additional details, check the book's availability, and place a hold. While a wealth of material on Transference and Countertransference is featured here, the list is not comprehensive. Please email us, to inquire about additional resources.

Remote students: keep in mind that items in QML's physical collection are accessible to you as well. Contact library staff to have an item sent via mail, request scans of needed chapters/sections, or inquire about alternative methods of accessing these books or any other resources in our library.

Transference and Countertransference from an Attachment Perspective by Una McCluskey; Michael O'Toole
Call Number: RC489.T73 M38 2020
ISBN: 0367340984
Publication Date: 2019
Explores the ways in which transferential phenomena can be located in the different aspects of the self that are instinctive, goal-corrected and interrelated. At the centre of the book is the idea that when intrapersonal or interpersonal systems (aspects of the self, such as careseeking, caregiving, sharing interests, sexuality, self-defence, building a home) get aroused, the behaviour that follows is only logically and meaningfully connected when the system (aspect of the self) reaches its goal. Placing this new theoretical and clinical approach within the psychoanalytic tradition, the work of developmental psychologists and the field of neuroscience, the book takes us to the heart of the clinical encounter and explores a range of issues including trauma, the effect of early misattunements, love and hate in the therapeutic relationship, burnout in caregivers, and the need for exploratory care for caregivers themselves.
Using Relentless Empathy in the Therapeutic Relationship by Anabelle Bugatti
Call Number: RC480.8 .B843 2021
ISBN: 9780367350444
Publication Date: 2020
With a refreshing approach to resistance in therapy, Using Relentless Empathy in the Therapeutic Relationship offers practical tools and tips to help therapists and clinicians across all modalities of counseling work with their most challenging clients. By illustrating the power of empathic responsiveness coupled with attachment science and interventions, the author goes straight to the heart of what’s vital for building strong therapeutic alliances with even the most difficult clients. Using Relentless Empathy in the Therapeutic Relationship presents effective tools that clinicians and therapists can use to move away from pathological diagnostic labels toward engaging with people in their distress.
Countertransference and the Therapist's Inner Experience by Charles J. Gelso; Jeffrey Hayes
Call Number: RC489 .C68 G457 2007
ISBN: 0805860827
Publication Date: 2007
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.
Countertransference and the Treatment of Trauma by Constance J. Dalenberg
Call Number: RC489.C68 D37 2000
ISBN: 1557986878
Publication Date: 2000
Understanding strong countertransference reactions can be the hardest part of practice for many mental health professionals - particularly with patients who have experienced great trauma. This book aimd to shows mental health practitioners how they can manage their countertransference reactions and use them as a force for healing patients suffering from trauma. The author draws on empirical studies from the Trauma Research Institute and her own clinical experience to establish a set of common countertransference responses for various types of trauma. The author explores actual clinical cases, dissects dialogue transcripts, and goes through the span of treatment to outline the various methods for dealing with countertransference, such as when and how to disclose countertransference reactions to patients.
Psychology of the Transference by C. G. Jung
Call Number: RC 506 .J8613 1969
ISBN: 0691017522
Publication Date: 1969
An authoritative account, based on a series of 16th century alchemical pictures, of Jung's handling of the transference between analyst and patient. The bond between analyst and patient is shown to be analogous to the kinship libido between the alchemist-adept and his mystic sister.

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