Transference and Countertransference Today

Why has Heinrich Racker’s original work on transference and countertransference proven so valuable?

With a passionate concern for the field created by the meeting of analyst and patient, and an abiding interest in the central importance of transference and countertransference in analytic practice, Robert Oelsner has brought together the thought and work of seventeen eminent analysts from Europe, the United States, and Latin America.

In new essays commissioned for this volume, the writers have set aside the lines that can often divide psychoanalytic groups and schools in order to examine in depth the variety of approaches and responses that characterize the best analytic practice today. The result is a collection of fresh, contemporary material centred on the two interrelated subjects – transference and countertransference – that make up the core of psychoanalytic work. Both in the clarity of their language and in moving clinical examples the writers reveal, in distinctively personal ways, how Heinrich Racker’s original thought, which brought the analyst’s unconscious responses into the equation, has allowed them to evolve their own perspectives. Yet it is particularly interesting to find unexpected parallels among the chapters that point toward a shared vision. Clearly, whether in work with adults or children, transference and countertransference are now seen as encompassing a field that embraces both participants in the consulting room.

Making Transference and Countertransference Today still more valuable as a resource for teachers and students are several major contributions by authors whose work is not otherwise readily available in English. Psychoanalysts and others will find few other books that present such a thoughtful picture of these crucial and fascinating analytic topics.

Robert Oelsner, a fellow of the Buenos Aires Psychoanalytic Association, is a training and supervising analyst and faculty at the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society, Seattle. He is also a supervising analyst at PINC in San Francisco, and guest faculty at the Child and Adolescent Program of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. He teaches in both the United States and in Europe.