ABSTRACT
Therapists find it hard to talk about abuse within a partner relationship. The same used to be the case, in the past, for accounts about incest or rape. After the Second World War, no one wanted to know exactly what went on in the concentration camps. The concepts of transference and countertransference indicate feelings evoked between clients and therapists within a therapeutic process. Countertransference is the reversed process. It deals with the feelings of the therapist as a reaction to the client. Therapists are faced with complicated dilemmas within countertransference. The function of the therapist is, among others, to listen empathically within a boundaried surrounding, in order to give clients the opportunity to do justice to their emotions. Time and again, the therapist is reminded of the problems other couples have who are being treated by him or her, couples who may not beat each other but who do show the same dynamics of power.
