ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the evolution of the concept of countertransference, starting with Freud’s early formulations. In private he acknowledged that the analyst’s countertransference could be therapeutically revealing and useful; in public he emphasised their ‘interfering’ role. Ferenczi’s at the time heretical valuation of an interpersonal perspective on the analyst–patient relationship is discussed. Bion’s seminal ideas, to be expanded in Chapter 3 , are briefly mentioned. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Heimann’s contribution and its influence on contemporary practice, in which countertransference, arising out of the interpersonal field, is seen as an essential to therapeutic understanding.
