ABSTRACT
Over the last 15 years, there has been a shift in the way analysts view the analytic process. While many analysts have always seen analytic work as interactional, for several decades ego psychology, the dominant school of thought in America, considered analysts as “blank screens” on whom patients could project their conflicts. The analysts were thought to be relatively interchangeable, and their contribution was primarily the offering of interpretations. In this context, counter-transference reactions were seen as intrusions to be analyzed by the analyst and controlled or a reason to go back into analysis. Countertransference was regarded as not providing the data for exploration that offered the opportunity for a greater understanding of the patient through a greater understanding of what had been evoked in the analyst in the interaction. Increasingly, analysts have recognized that they are active participants in the process who influence, and are influenced by, what occurs with their patients (Gill, 1982; Hoffman, 1983).
