ABSTRACT
The assessor can see many reasons for their depressed state of mind, but there is an apparent gulf between that person’s and the assessor’s understanding that seems unbridgeable. It can leave the assessor feeling hopeless and impotent, feeling that he has nothing to give or contribute. There is an apparent emptiness in the counter-transference, which can seem the result of a deficit of functioning in the subject and it can appear that this person will not be able to use treatment because of their incapacity to symbolize or to reflect upon their experience. Paradoxically, these unpromising prospects often prove wrong, despite the initial rejection of interpretations of early loss. The transference creates what the author would like to call a “counter-transference depression” in which there is a feeling of wanting to help but with the gloomy sense that any effort is bound to fail. To illustrate these dilemmas, the chapter discusses a clinical example.
