ABSTRACT
Countertransference has had a long, complex, and unsteady history in the field of psychotherapy. Originating within the confines of Freudian thought, it was paid scant attention for many decades, even within psychoanalysis. However, over the past 25 years or so, interest in the construct has greatly increased and widened. Psychoanalytic therapists have become vitally interested in countertransference. But others have also become interested, as we discuss. Over the years, the meaning of countertransference, too, has evolved, such that at the current time, there exists some shared understandings and some fundamental disagreements about just what countertransference is and what its role is in both psychodynamically based treatments and nondynamic therapies.
