On theory and practice of transference and countertransference in psychoanalytic pluralism

Present-day psychoanalysis is characterized by pluralism, subjectivism and eclecticism. This is certainly an indication of creativity but also poses the question of the truth-value of mutually exclusive theories about the same phenomenon and the way theories influence psychoanalytic thought and action. Merely pointing out that in all cases the methodology is the same is insufficient to disarm criticism. The differences extend right down to therapeutic technique. Without previous clarification of the issues involved there can be no uncontested postulation of a "common ground" shared by all psychoanalytic schools of thought. Inspired by Merton M. Gill's sociological understanding of psychoanalytic method as a unique form of intersubjective praxis and drawing on the idea of the "bifocality of countertransference" and the attendant reciprocal influence operative between analyst and patient, the author undertakes a review of the most important theories regarding the concepts of transference and countertransference. In so doing, he distances himself equally from the totalist view of transference (Kleinians) and the out-and-out subjectivism of an absolutized countertransference concept.