ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly mentions some aspects of working through the countertransference. The mental set of the analyst is firmly embedded in his cultural life history with its unconscious biases that strongly influence his receptivity. During the verbal squiggle game the thinking of both analysand and analyst can most flexibly and cogently switch, without conflict, to the uses of autistic–contiguous, paranoid–schizoid, and depressive modes of generating experience. It is proposed in this communication that successful psychotherapeutic work with severely disturbed patients necessitates an intensification of the analyst's attention to his intrapsychic, countertransference experiences stemming from his conscious and unconscious interactions with his patient. The countertransference reactions manifest themselves as psychical, emotional, and somatosensory perceptions. The effectiveness of the analyst's work is heightened by his formulating his interpretations on the basis of those intrapsychic experiences. Through the analyst's complementary regression to and simultaneous interpretation of the analysand's autistic–contiguous and schizoparanoid modes of experience, the patient is enabled to introject the analytic object.
