What is Countertransference?
The therapist’s inner experience during sessions — the unexpected sadness, the sudden image, the inexplicable heaviness — came to be understood as a resonance with what the client was carrying but could not yet put into words.
Countertransference refers to the therapist’s emotional, psychological, and somatic responses to the client — including feelings, images, and physical sensations that arise during the work. Originally seen as a contaminant to be controlled, countertransference is now understood in depth psychotherapy as a primary source of clinical information.
From liability to instrument
The therapist’s inner experience during sessions — the unexpected sadness, the sudden image, the inexplicable heaviness — came to be understood as a resonance with what the client was carrying but could not yet put into words.
What the therapist feels as data
A skilled therapist does not suppress their emotional responses in session. They attend to them carefully and consider what they might be communicating about the client’s inner world.
The relationship as the medium
In Jungian analysis, the therapeutic relationship itself is the primary medium of change. Transference and countertransference together create a field between two people in which material can arise that belongs to neither — and to both.
Book a consultation with Philippe Jacquet — psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, London.