ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the concept of countertransference in the thought of Heinrich Racker and of Madeleine and Willy Baranger. The countertransference was both the starting-point and the central theme of Racker’s work. He saw investigation of the countertransference phenomenon as one of the main factors of change in analytic treatment, as well as a pathway for advances in psychoanalytic theorisation. He set himself the task of investigating the implicit dynamics of the countertransference phenomenon, commencing with Freud’s idea that aspects of the analyst’s infantile neurosis, which acted as resistances, were expressed in the countertransference. The concept of the dynamic field represented the convergence of various contemporary currents of thought, such as, for example, the ideas of Kurt Lewin, a psychologist of the Berlin School, who used the principles of Gestalt theory for the study of personality and groups.