[Countertransference in psychoanalytic therapy of children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorders]

Understanding countertransference in dynamic therapy of children and adolescents is important for the clarification of unconscious conflicts because of the frequent absence of dreams and free association in the analytic process. When compulsions determine the course of the psychic disorder countertransference becomes an important landmark for comprehending and resolving the affect-loaded sadomasochistic collusion as an externalization of intrapsychic conflicts. Compulsive acts and thoughts helping to preserve seriously threatened structures of the self and the ego engender different countertransference reactions in the analyst than the ego-superego-conflicts of compulsion neurosis. This makes them essential for diagnosis and therapeutic interventions.