ABSTRACT
The clinical material that follows is a report of the analysis of a woman who began treatment at the end of her sixth decade with an analyst fifteen years her junior. A brief history of the patient is given. This is followed by an evaluation of analysability, a characterization of the transference and countertransference configurations which emerged and a summary of the analysand's self-analysing capacity in the termination phase. Under the scrutiny of self-analysis the issues were recognized by the analyst as the loci of various countertransference distortions associated with the analyst's own phase specific issues. It is of note that the analyst's personal countertransference distortions had the misfortune of having their available counterparts "out there" in commonly held stereotypic beliefs about the older women. The case illustrates the timelessness of psychological conflicts at all levels and the particular character of the analyst's countertransferences that surfaced listening to the material of this older analysand.
