ABSTRACT

The concepts of transference, countertransference, and “scenic” understanding were developed in psychoanalytic treatments with their defined setting and their deliberate distance from the everyday. In psychoanalytic treatment the transference of the analysand and the countertransference of the analyst are the most important paths of access to the unconscious of both participants. The psychoanalytic situation is characterised by its framework and by a method of self-reflection, that is, by the free associations of the patient. Since the external interactions and the psychic exchange processes take place directly and very rapidly, psychoanalytic social workers have to be able to a high degree to tolerate tensions, intense affects, and projective ascriptions of affects to them. The psychoanalytic process revolves around the axis of transference and countertransference, that is to say the psychoanalytic relationship. The client is encountered in direct interaction frequently marked by heavy “transference pressure”.