ABSTRACT
When reading about psychotherapy, one can easily get the sense that the therapist is low-key and rather bland, although naturally interested in what the patient is communicating. This is far from the truth, as therapists often experience intense affects. In this chapter I explore two of the most common such affects, love and hate. Love in the therapist for the patient has been greatly ignored in the therapy literature, probably because of fears around sexuality and ethical violations. However, love is an important healing affect, as long as it not embedded in the therapist’s countertransference conflicts. Hate also has been ignored because we therapists tend to feel shame when we experience it. When the therapist’s hateful reactions have been discussed, they almost always have been attributed nearly exclusively to what the patient creates in the therapist. It is important that the therapist own this intense negative affect and understand it in terms of both the therapist’s unresolved conflicts and the patient’s defenses. When understood and accepted, love and hate both can be an important part of the curative process in psychotherapy.
