usually labeled empathy. To achieve the purposes of deep psychotherapy, the therapist undergoes a trial identification with the patient. The therapist's ability to help the patient depends heavily, however, on his or her recognition that the feelings and instinctual strivings in which he or she has participated actually belong to the patient. According to the orthodox view, the therapist's detachment, a crucial ingredient in successful psychotherapy, is abrogated by a countertransference reaction (Arlow, 1986).
The therapist's identification with the patient can, under some circumstances, become over identification. ". . . this delicate process of trial identification is fraught with hazards, and its failure may show itself as countertransference" (Arlow, 1986, p. 77). The identification can trigger infantile responses in the analyst; alternatively, the process of identification can trap the therapist because they are satisfying and he or she may not be willing to give them up. The operation of therapeutic empathy requires a balance betwee
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