The purpose of this research is to examine the concept of therapist-client relationship in terms of self-disclosure, transference, and countertransference, and their effect upon therapy and upon patients. The plan of the research will be to set forth a working definition of transference in the therapist-client relationship, and then to discuss the impact that the behavior of both therapist and client in the psychotherapeutic dynamic has on therapeutic outcomes and processes.
Heller refers to three therapy modalities, the classical, objective, and totalistic, to explain how views of the therapist's role in the therapy process has evolved since the earliest period. Transference and countertransference aspects of the therapist-client relationship originate in classical theory, and classical theory originates with Freud. In the classical view, transference is the name given to the patient's carrying into the relationship with the therapist "unresolved difficulties in interpersonal relationships with the significant people of the patient's early life." According to Fromm-Reichmann, Freud's valuable contribution was to study the therapist-client relationship closely. Heller adds that the classical view of that relationship was that the therapist should guard against countertransfering his own unresolved difficulties into the relationship with the client, which resulted in the classical view of countertransference as the dangers of (a) dropping a neutral perspective and (b) displaying any emotion to the patient. As a consequence the modern psychotherapist inherits from the classical tradition a view of therapy comportment that characterizes the therapist as knowledgeable, not to say absolutist, powerful, and dogmatic. The therapist in some manner interprets the patient's neurosis, then facilitates and enables the patient's cure. Heller's criticism of the classical view is that it has a realistic picture of the patient's humanity and nee...