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When first published, Heinrich Racker's papers were quickly appreciated as a benchmark in the ongoing, although at the time underdeveloped, understanding of the vital importance of countertransference in the psychoanalytic process. In subsequent years a great deal has been written on the subject without diminishing the classic status of Racker's fundamental intervention. Transference, and especially countertransference, constitute the principle focus and axis of the author's re-examination and development of psychoanalytic technique and theory, written to address a perceived gap between psychoanalytic knowledge and its capacity to effect psychological transformation in the patient. This reissued edition makes available again a cogent, lucid and elegantly articulate contribution to a central psychoanalytic topic.
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TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE BY HEINRICH RACKER KARNAC LONDON NEW YORK Copyright 1968 by Genevieve T. De Racker Daniel Racker Diego Racker Reprinted 1982 with permission of Hogarth PressLtd. Limited, by Karnac Books H. Kamac 118 Finchley(Books) Road Ltd. 6 Pembroke Buildings London NW3 5HT London N W 10 6RE All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Second Printing 1985 Third Printing 1988 Fourth Printing 1991 Fiflh Printing 2002 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library 0 950719469 ISBN: 978 09507146 0 1 Printed and bound by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastbourne Contents Foreword page Preface: Heinrich Racker I g 10-1 96I (Ma& Langer) Introduction I Psycho-Analytic Technique 2 Classical and Present Techniques in Psycho-Analysis 3 Considerations on the Theory of Transference 4 Analysis of Transference through the Patient's Relations with the Interpretation 5 The Countertransference Neurosis 6 The Meanings and Uses of Countertransference 7 Psycho-Analytic Technique and the Analyst's Unconscious Masochism 8 Psycho-Analytic Technique and the Analayst's Unconscious Mania g Counterresistance and Interpretation References Index vii ix Foreword During the last two decades there have been striking developments in psycho-analytic theory, notably in ego psychology and in the role of object relations in personality functioning. These changes have inevitably carried implications for technique, and views on these aspects are now being formulated more systematically in the light of experience. The late Dr Heinrich Racker was a notable contributor in this endeavour, and this volume brings together his main papers. As he describes in his introduction, his studies do not constitute a comprehensive account of the history and principles of the psycho-analytic method. Instead, these papers relate almost entirely to one of the newer lines of thought devoted to elucidating the ways in which the psycho-analyst's own responses to his analysand influence the joint venture that is every psychoanalysis. In no other branch of knowledge are the instruments of investigation so intimately related to the personality of the investigator, and Dr Racker's work is a manifestation of the concern of psycho-analysts to keep their method under constant scrutiny. Dr Racker's untimely death was a great loss to psycho-analysis and above all to the devoted group of his colleagues in the Argentine. It seemed most fitting that as a preface to his papers there should be included a brief obituary notice by his friend Dr Marie Langer. Even from this short account, there emerges a remarkably gifted and cultured man who brought great sensitivity and integrity to his passionate concern for imp