Deconstructing Countertransference

Abend’s (1989 Abend, S. (1989). Countertransference and psychoanalytic technique. Psychoanal. Q., 58:374‐395.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) paper, “Countertransference and Psychoanalytic Technique,” is a status report on the concept of countertransference in all its various usages at that time which argues for a “big tent” approach to countertransference that includes a wide variety of subjective experiences the analyst encounters. The author argues that while Abend’s approach has helped to “normalize” the analyst’s emotional reactions to the analysand, this approach gives short shrift to the important variations in the analyst’s subjective experience of the analysand. The author explores the different kinds of subjective experiences evoked in the clinician that have been typically grouped under the big tent approach to countertransference. A clinical vignette is offered to illustrate these points.