ABSTRACT
In 1910 Anna Freud suggested, somewhat tentatively, that his colleagues should analyse their countertransference. Freud relatively early in his analytic career, if not from its outset, knew a good deal more about countertransference than he is usually given credit for. The chapter shows that the erotic countertransference is responsive to and complementary to the transference. The erotic countertransference sometimes antedates the overt appearance of the erotic transference. A good deal had been happening elsewhere to prompt Freud to the conclusion that an article on countertransference was "sorely needed". Freud saw two particularly powerful types of transference that were serious obstacles to analysis: the erotic transference and the negative transference. The chapter explores the male analyst is responding to in the erotic countertransference is the unconscious invitation from the patient to regard himself as the transcendent love-object of her Oedipus complex.
