Definition of countertransference

To understand countertransference, it helps to tackle transference first.

Transference was a word coined by Sigmund Freud to label the way
patients "transfer" feelings from important persons in their early lives,
onto the psychoanalyst or therapist. Freud realized that transference is
universal, and therefore could occur in the analyst as well. He did not
write much about this, except to say that "countertransference" could
interfere with successful treatment. The analyst experiencing
countertransference should rid himself of these feelings by having
further analysis himself. Since the 1950s, psychoanalysts
and psychodynamic therapists have held a more benign view of
countertransference. It is no longer seen as an impediment to
treatment (at least not inevitably), but instead as important data for the
therapist to use in helping the patient.

In using countertransference this way, the therapist must consider

multiple sources of his or her feelings. Some feelings, positive or
negative, may be evoked by the patient.
Countertransference is not always helpful. Particularly when it is
unexamined — or, worse, unrecognized — it can indeed interfere with
effective treatment. This can occur even with positive
countertransference, as when a therapist is so entertained by a
patient's jokes that the underlying bitterness is ignored, or when an
attractive patient is never challenged because the therapist
desperately yearns to be liked. More often, though,
countertransference is problematic when it is negative. The therapist
feels bored, irked, paralyzed, or contemptuous in the presence of a
particular patient. It is the therapist's job to recognize these feelings
and deal with them. Occasionally a therapist must refer the patient to a
colleague when the original therapist's countertransference is
unmanageable. Fortunately, in most cases, these uncomfortable
feelings, once recognized by the therapist, can not only be understood
but also used constructively in the treatment.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sacramento-street-
psychiatry/201003/overview-countertransference

Countertransference[1] is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings

toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement
with a client.
The phenomenon of countertransference (German: Gegenübertragung)[2] was
first defined publicly by Sigmund Freud in 1910 (The Future Prospects of
Psycho-Analytic Therapy) as being "a result of the patient's influence on [the
physician's] unconscious feelings"; although Freud had been aware of it
privately for some time, writing to Carl Jung for example in 1909 of the need "to
dominate 'counter-transference', which is after all a permanent problem for us".
[3]
 Freud stated that since an analyst is a human himself he can easily let his
emotions into the client.[4][5] Because Freud saw the countertransference as a
purely personal problem for the analyst, he rarely referred to it publicly, and did
so almost invariably in terms of a "warning against any countertransference
lying in wait" for the analyst, who "must recognize this countertransference in
himself and master it".[6] However, analysis of Freud's letters shows that he was
intrigued by countertransference and did not see it as purely a problem.
The potential danger of the analyst's countertransference – "In such cases, the
patient represents for the analyst an object of the past on to whom past feelings
and wishes are projected"[8] – became widely accepted in psychodynamic
circles, both within and without the psychoanalytic mainstream. Thus, for
example, Jung warned against "cases of counter-transference when the analyst
really cannot let go of the patient...both fall into the same dark hole of
unconsciousness".[9] Similarly Eric Berne stressed that "Countertransference
means that not only does the analyst play a role in the patient's script, but she
plays a part in his...the result is the 'chaotic situation' which analysts speak of".
[10]
 Lacan acknowledged of the analyst's "countertransference...if he is re-
animated the game will proceed without anyone knowing who is leading". [11]
In this sense, the term includes unconscious reactions to a patient that are
determined by the psychoanalyst's own life history and unconscious content; it
was later expanded to include unconscious hostile and/or erotic feelings toward
a patient that interfere with objectivity and limit the therapist's effectiveness.
As the 20th century progressed, however, other, more positive views of
countertransference began to emerge, approaching a definition of
countertransference as the entire body of feelings that the therapist has toward
the patient. Jung explored the importance of the therapist's reaction to the
patient through the image of the wounded physician: "it is his own hurt that
gives the measure of his power to heal".[14]
 Psychosexual development
 Psychosocial development (Erikson)
 Unconscious
 Preconscious
 Consciousness
 Psychic apparatus
 Id, ego and super-ego
 Libido
 Drive
 Transference
 Countertransference
 Ego defenses
 Resistance
 Projection
 Denial
 Dreamwork
Freud first defined countertransference as ‘the result of patients’ influence
on [the physician’s] unconscious feelings and ‘as a personal problem for
the analyst’ (Freud, 1910) ‘warning against any countertransference lying
in wait’ (Gay, 1989, p. 302) for the analyst who ‘must recognise this
countertransference in himself and master it’ (Gay, 1989, p. 254).

However, following Jung’s (1976) Wounded Healer, ‘it is his own hurt that
gives the measure of his power to heal’, Paula Heimann
(Casement, 1990) stated that the analyst’s countertransference is ‘part of
the patient’s personality’. Subsequently, ‘countertransference was thus
reversed from being an interference to becoming a vital source of
conformation’. Yet how many psychological therapists who justify where
they’ve got to with their own problematic journey using Jung to legitimise
telling clients how they make them feel, think etc, carry out Jung’s
essential requirement to be in analysis? Otherwise ‘the analyst really
cannot let go of the patient…both fall into the same dark hole of
unconsciousness’ (Jung, 1976).

Later in the twentieth century, there was a growing consensus that there
is ‘a distinction between “personal countertransference” (which has to do
with the therapist) and “diagnostic response” – that indicates something
about the patient…diagnostic countertransference’
 In stark contrast, there is the exception of those following Lacan, where
countertransference is seen as the ultimate resistance of the analyst
(Quinodoz, 2005, p. 72). Lacan defines countertransference as ‘the sum
of the prejudices, passions, perplexities, and even the insufficient
information of the analyst’ (Bailly, 2009, p. 188).