ABSTRACT
The relationship between the person who asks for psychotherapy and the therapist is the central element in understanding why some therapies are successful and some prove ineffective. In several studies the relationship turned out, for different methodologies, to be the common variable due to which such a complex process as psychotherapy proves either helpful or useless. Transference implies projecting these expectations about a parental figure on to the therapist. Specifically, one seeks in the therapist what one expects to receive from the parent who determined one’s attachment pattern. Transference interactions are very helpful in order to acquire information about the attachment pattern and therefore about very important aspects of the patient’s script. The alliance is half-way between the real relationship and the analysis of transference. Countertransference is described within the psychoanalytic community as all the emotional reactions of the therapist to the patient, and thus not only the therapist’s projections on to the patient.
