Abstract

TORRES, Fernanda Laverde  and  PINHEIRO, Nadja Nara Barbosa. A historical/conceptual study on countertransference: from Freud to the second generation of psychoanalysts. Mental [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.24, pp.1-14. ISSN 1679-4427.

From a clinical care in which countertransference seemed to demonstrate a contradictory facet, the following question arose: beyond the analyst's resistance, could we understand it as a clinical instrument? The article makes a historical-conceptual trajectory in order to verify how the traditional authors of psychoanalysis worked with the theme. Initially, the ideas of Freud and some of his contemporaries are presented. It follows that Freud's work allows a double interpretation: as resistance, countertransference must be mastered as a vehicle of unconscious communication, it must be harnessed. Ferenczi and Stern, their contemporaries, highlighted the existence of these two facets and the possibility of specific clinical management. In a second moment, the article presents the considerations made by the second generation of psychoanalysts. Among these, it can be seen that authors like Reich and Lacan exacerbate the negative character of countertransference, understanding it exclusively as resistance of the analyst. In its turn, authors such as Heimann and Winnicott defend the idea that countertransference may be used as a way to access the unconscious of their patients. The present article suggests that Winnicott is the author who sustains the contradiction present in countertransference in a more intense and original way. It concludes that, given the complexity and importance of the theme, it is necessary to research, in the future, how current authors are thematizing the subject, in terms of proposal of conceptual understanding and alternatives of clinical management.

Keywords : Countertransference; Freud; Transference; Analyst Resistance; Clinical instrument.

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