ABSTRACT
The developmental point of view has led the Independents’ theory of technique into pre-verbal activity, which means emphasis on the intrapsychic experience of both patient and analyst. Freud first introduced the concept of countertransference, and analysts at the time understood this as referring to the analyst’s pathological emotional reaction to the patient. Apart from his ongoing work with children, Donald Winnicott had also been preoccupied during the early 1940s with exploring the possibilities of analysis with adult psychotic and borderline patients. It was Paula Heimann’s paper ‘On counter-transference’, read at the Amsterdam Congress of 1949, that is generally regarded as the starting point of specific interest in the use the analyst makes of the affective response. Heimann said that her paper was stimulated by seminars with students who often felt afraid and guilty when they became aware of having feelings towards their patients.
