ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the understanding of the analyst's/therapist's vulnerabilities within the therapeutic process and the intimate potential of the therapeutic relationship. It discusses the awareness of the therapist's personal vulnerabilities in addition to the more common conceptualizations of countertransference. The chapter presents the case material that illustrates the complex questions of self-disclosure and the intimate nature of the therapeutic endeavour when viewed from a relational perspective. Poland delivered in recognition of McLaughlin's contributions to psychoanalysis, mirrors Ferenczi's observations about the psychic impact of the patient upon the therapist's being. McLaughlin has stressed that whether peoples's are analyst or patient, one's deepest hopes for what they may find the world to be, as well as one's worst fears of what it will be, reflect one's transference expectancies as shaped by our developmental past. Ferenczi also observed a certain merging of psychic realities in the analytic couple that brings affective vitality to the analytic endeavor.
