Power of Counter Transference: Innovations in Analytic Technique by Karen J. Maroda
This study aims to forge current and past ideas concerning psychoanalysis into a new interpersonal approach to treatment. This approach emphasizes mutuality and debunks the idea that psychoanalysis needs to cling to authoritarianism to maintain its essential integrity. The author discusses the desire for transformation, which seems to motivate not only patients but their therapists as well, and emphasizes the transference-countertransference interplay, noting that both patient and therapist will try to re-enact their past dramas. The volume contains many case studies to illustrate theoretical concepts and clinical applications. It outlines in detail how the countertransference can be used to further treatment goals and resolve unnecessary impasses. It also provides a practical set of guidelines for how and when to disclose the countertransference. Included are discussions of when not to disclose and how to know when a countertransference intervention has failed.