ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two analyst-related variables, age and family configuration, to expand the examination of countertransference enactments and some effects on the analytic process. The traditional model of psychoanalysis, the blank-screen model, never easily lent itself to the examination of countertransference. Although, beginning with Breuer's Anna O analysts acknowledged to their intimates that they experienced a wide variety of feelings and reactions toward their patients, these countertransference sentiments were largely viewed as based on unresolved problems in the analyst. The analyst as observing-participant evolving to analyst as consistently mutually enacting reflects a growing field-theoretical view wherein patient and analyst, two subjectivities if you will, inevitably mutually influence one another. This emphasis was reinforced beyond North America and Great Britain by Racker's influential description of the principles of talion the back and forth reciprocal nature of the affective experience of analyst and patient on one another. Countertransference feelings lead to gross or subtle enactments that are perceived by the patient.
