ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the importance of the therapist’s awareness of her own echoism, and her responsibility for acknowledging its presence in the clinical relationship. It explores the acknowledgments made by these participants of their own echoistic traits, which may even have led them into the work of therapy. The chapter explains how an echoistic disposition in the therapist might make toleration of the echoistic patient difficult, as well as leading to the therapist experiencing countertransference problems produced by the echoist’s difficulty in staying in therapy, where the focus of attention lies uncomfortably fixed on her. The consequences may be quite different if the therapist is working with an echoistic patient and is unaware of her own echoism. One real danger is that a therapist unable to take responsibility for her own echoism might inadvertently project echoistic aspects of herself powerfully into the patient.