ABSTRACT
Any discussion of the patient-physician relationship in dynamic psychotherapy inevitably brings up two terms which have come from psychoanalytic theory—transference and countertransference. The term countertransference should be reserved for a therapist’s irrational attitudes toward his patient, attitudes which have grown out of his previous life experiences and are not justified by the realities of the therapeutic situation. Psychotherapy is still largely an art as well as a science. It is extremely difficult to measure objectively all the subtle nuances and nonverbal interplay that go on between a patient and therapist in the psychotherapeutic relationship. The relationship of the therapist to the patient must inevitably vary with the dynamic needs of the patient, and with the nature of the therapeutic goal.
