ABSTRACT
Just as transference was seen by Freud as an obstruction to the patient's flow of free associations, so countertransference was consistently regarded as an obstruction to the freedom of the analyst's understanding of the patient. A major development in psychoanalytic writings on countertransference occurred when it began to be seen as a phenomenon of importance in helping the analyst to understand the hidden meaning of the patient's material. Although developments in Kleinian theory and technique represent a major trend in the development of views on countertransference, other psychoanalysts, from quite different theoretical positions, have also emphasized the interpersonal perspective of transference-countertransference interactions. Sandler in writing on countertransference and 'role-responsiveness', put forward the view that the patient will attempt to actualize, to bring about in reality, the self-object interaction represented in his dominant unconscious wishful fantasy.
