ABSTRACT
Freud created a method of listening to patients’ free associations with a free-floating, unbiased attention. But he soon realized that while he was doing this some of his patients’ powerful emotional links to the analyst contaminated the sterile field of the surgery of the mind he hoped to perform. He called these effects transferences, and then noticed that what had at first looked like a disturbance was actually a rich source of information about the gems of the unconscious that he was seeking. Although he acknowledged that feelings were also stirred up in the analyst when exposed to the transferences of the patients – which he therefore christened “counter-transferences.” However he did not think of them in the same way he thought of transferences but only as shortcomings of the analyst, and recommended the analysis of the analysts to overcome or prevent them. This was the origin of the institution of the training analysis. Both Hinshelwood and Faimberg (this volume) have done fine studies of Freud’s countertransferences, which he did not then have the tools to use for the benefit of the treatment. Melanie Klein’s method did not differ from Freud’s in this respect.
