ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the interpersonal relationship between the patients and their analysts, and draws on the transference as understood by the patients and their perceptions of the analysts’ method of interpretation. While countertransference is understood as an important analytic function in interpretation, it is crucial to keep in mind that the analyst can also be subject to feelings that contain repressed elements in him/herself and which are not just generated by the patient’s material. The interpretative style of the analyst covers a very broad area, encompassing the many levels at which the patients perceived their analyst to deliver the interpretations. The analytic relationship, with its frequency of sessions over a considerable length of time, is, by its very nature, of such intensity that patients cannot avoid being interested in, or getting to know, aspects of the analyst’s personality or personal style of working.
