The concept of countertransference has recently undergone a period of revision and reorganization. Within psychodynamic theory countertransference originally referred to the analyst'sunconscious response to the patient. As such, it was assumed to have negative effects on the therapeutic relationship. A broader definition of countertransference that embraces the analyst's total unconscious and conscious response to the patient has achieved wide, but not universal, acceptance within the psychoanalytic community. This alteration in the view of countertransference has stimulated controversy about both its theoretical structure and its place within therapy. Under the old form of definition, the countertransference is essentially the analyst's problem, to be dealt with in his or her own analysis. Under the new view, the countertransference can itself constitute a tool for therapy.
Freud (1910) described countertransference as consisting of inappropriate reactions of the analyst stemming from his or her own unresolved conflicts. Naturally, psychotherapists can experience their own conflicts and confusions, both within the therapeutic milieu and outside of it. Countertransference, under the original Freudian formulation, includes the analyst's irrational thoughts and reactions that occur in more or less direct response to the patient. He called those reactions "counter" transference because they involve the projection on to the patient of feelings and wishes from the past.
Countertransference, according to Freud (1910) and orthodox Freudians, is distinct from transference. Within the transference, the "field" in which the activity of analysis ultimately takes place, the patient "transfers" many of his or her feelings about past "objects" (parents and possibly other significant individuals) on to the therapist. Created through the repetition of past relationships, transference reactions comprise unconscious drives, ...