ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the countertransference as taking place in an interpersonal space where the clear borders between 'I' and 'you' seem to breakdown, and it is not easy in these moments to decipher if the affective state, derives from the analyst or the analysand. Contemporary understanding identifies intersubjective and intercorporeal relating as the basis of an embodied transference–countertransference communication. The level of embodied-affective experience has to be touched somehow in the room, otherwise the process of therapy becomes too intellectual and overcognitive, and depth-change is not possible. The increasing awareness of enactment as a primary unconscious means of communication has placed importance on procedural-action body-based memory. This communication alters and influences bio-affective processes in interaction between baby and other, as well as embodied modes of communicating via the senses. Experiences are revisited through forms of reenactment in the therapy room via transference–countertransference communications.