Countertransference: Theory, Technique, Teaching

2 COUNTERTRANSFERENCE Theory, Technique, Teaching edited by Athina Alexandris and Grigoris Vastamatzis Contributors Athina Alexandris León Grinberg Theodore J. Jacobs Otto F. Kernberg Joyce McDougall Thomas H. Ogden Hanna Segal Grigoris Vaslamatzis Vamik D. Volkan Hector Warnes London KARNAC BOOKS 3 First published in 1993 by H. Karnac (Books) Ltd. 58 Gloucester Road London SW7 4QY Copyright © 1993 by Athina Alexandris and Grigoris Vaslamatzis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any process or technique, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Chapter five published in Great Britain in 1989 by Free Association Books, 26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ, by arrangement with International Universities Press, Inc. First published in 1988 in Madison, CT, USA, by International Universities Press, Inc. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data . Alexandris Athina Countertransference: Theory, Technique, Teaching 1. Title II. Vaslamatzis Grigoris 154.2 ISBN 1 85575 028 7 Printed in Great Britain by BPCC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter Dedicated ...to all those who provided stimulation, motivation, assistance, and support to this endeavour; ...in particular, to those who motivated the analysts to study countertransferencetransference further by activating in them strong countertransference feelings; ...to the authors of this volume, who eagerly offered their important work, thus making this book invaluable to the reader 4 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi PREFACE Grigoris Vaslamatzis xiii Introduction Athina Alexandris 1 1. Countertransference Hanna Segal 13 2. The analytic management and interpretation of projective identification Thomas H. Ogden 21 3. Countertransference and the concept of projective counteridentification León Grinberg 47 4. A parallel voyage of mourning for patient and analyst within the transference-countertransference voyage Athina Alexandris 69 5. Countertransference and primitive communication Joyce McDougall 95 6. Countertransferential bodily feelings and the containing function of the analyst Athina Alexandris, Grigoris Vaslamatzis 135 7. Countertransference reactions commonly present in the treatment of patients with borderline personality organization Vamik D. Volkan 147 8. Projective identification, countertransference, 5 and hospital treatment Otto Kernberg 165 9. Some thoughts on insight and its relation to countertransference Athina Alexandris, Grigoris Vaslamatzis 189 10. The patient-therapist fit and countertransference reaction in the light of frame theory Hector Warnes 199 11. Transference-countertransference interactions in the supervisory situation: some observations Theodore J. Jacobs 221 12. Some transference-countertransference issues of the supervisory situation: a dream about the supervisor Grigoris Vaslamatzis 239 REFERENCES 245 INDEX 257 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS What prompted the publication of this volume is the presentation of the paper entitled "Some Thoughts on Insight and Its Relation to Countertransference" by the editors of this book, A. Alexandris, M.D., and G. Vaslamatzis, M.D., during the Eighth World Congress of Psychiatry ( 1989), in Athens, Greece. The positive comments of analysts, referring to the importance of the clinical material presented in this paper on the one hand, and the demand expressed by our own colleagues and students (psychiatrists and psychologists) to know more about transferencecountertransference on the other, made us think that it would be valuable to have in one volume the views of prominent analysts about the subje