Some technical problems of countertransference

There are several aspects of the psychoanalytic interaction that foster the emergence of countertransference. First is a persistent identification with the patient, based primarily on the sharing of unconscious fantasies. Then there is the evocative power the patient's material may have upon latent unresolved conflicts in the analyst. Finally, the analytic setting itself may evoke a broad range of countertransference responses. Particular attention must be paid to those interventions of the analyst which represent attempts to divert his own and the patient's attention from emerging derivatives of the conflicts. There are many clues that should alert the analyst to the possibility of interfering countertransference.