Transference and countertransference

TOPIC: The utility of transference and countertransference in professional nursing relationships. PURPOSE: To provide an introductory text for nurses new to these concepts. SOURCES: Literature specific to transference and countertransference illustrated by examples related to professional practice. CONCLUSIONS: Transference and countertransference influence relationships in ways that under certain conditions may be unhelpful to all concerned. Understanding how transference and countertransference manifest themselves has implications for the safe structuring of professional relationships.     

Transference and countertransference to medication and its implications for ego function

Transference to medication can provide important information about specific ego dysfunction in sicker patients who often need medication. Whether positive or negative or both in content, the organization of the experience provides one example of the illness' effect on the patients' ego and can therefore be a specific diagnostic assessment strategy. Early resistances to medication may reveal the nature of resistances to the therapeutic alliance and to higher-level ego function. Understanding this can guide verbal and pharmacological interventions to strengthen ego function. Countertransference can similarly be helpful because it, too, can be a highly specific diagnostic indicator.     

Transference and countertransference in clinical intervention with divorcing families

The final scenes of the failed marriage are replayed in the consulting room not only in the painful content of the verbal interactions but in the transference reactions of client and countertransference responses of clinician--material rooted in the current crisis as well as the developmental histories of the protagonists. The theoretical underpinnings of this broadened conception of transference/countertransference are discussed and its role in assessment and treatment is highlighted.     

Transference interpretations in short-term dynamic psychotherapy.

Transference interpretations are one of the distinguishing features of dynamically oriented psychotherapy. Previous studies have suggested that too many transference interpretations may be detrimental, in particular for certain kinds of patients. Given the potential for negative effects, attempts to validate (replicate) the previous findings are worthwhile. The relationships between the frequency and proportion of transference interpretations and both the therapeutic alliance and treatment outcome were examined in a sample of 40 patients who received time-limited, 20-session, individual psychotherapy. Inverse relationships were found between the frequency of transference interpretations and both patient-rated therapeutic alliance and favorable outcome. The relationships differed as a function of the patient personality characteristic known as quality of object relations (QOR). These results extend previous findings regarding transference technique in short-term dynamic therapy with low-QOR and high-QOR patients.