Introduction to Analytic Listening

Second Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2022-23, 1st Trimester — Fridays, 12:00-1:30pm
Katherine Weissbourd, PhD

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October 14, 2022 — Countertransference

How do we think and talk about the feelings we have about our patients? Psychoanalysts have become more open to acknowledging and reflecting on their emotional responses to clients, using them as important clinical information. At times, these feelings are evoked by unresolved experiences in the analyst’s present or past. At other times, they may be related to nonverbal communications from the patient, and they may lead to new insights and interpretations. Being aware of our own subjectivity, and comfortable reflecting on it, is an important part of analytic training.

Optional Reading

Winnicott, D.W. (1947). Hate in the Countertransference in Through Paediatrics to Psycho-Analysis: Collected Papers.  New York: Brunner-Mazel (1992) pp.194-203.

Abend, S.M. (2018) Countertransference and Psychoanalytic Technique: A Response. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 87:587-589