[A contribution to handling counter-transference in borderline patients (author's transl)]

This paper is based on the concept that, instead of neurotic conflicts as studied and treated by Freud, Earlier ego-disturbances e.g. psychotic and borderline reactions have nowadays become prominent and need a very different technique of treatment. These so called archaic ego-illnesses are due to an unresolved symbiosis complex, a disturbance which arises already in very early childhood before the development of speech. On a sample of a female borderline patient the author tries to show that in such cases active use of countertransference often provides the only technique with which the psychotherapist may recognize on an averbal plane the needs of the patient and may be able to make them available to her verbally.