An Overview of Countertransference With Borderline Patients

¹ Menninger Clinic and the Kansas University School of Medicine, Topeka, Kansas.

Successful management of countertransference is critical to the psychotherapy of borderline patients. The author discusses the most common countertransference reactions encountered in such treatments. A theoretical framework is also proposed that conceptualizes countertransference as a joint creation between therapist and patient. It follows from this conceptual framework that therapists must constantly monitor their own contributions from past relationships as well as the aspects of countertransference evoked by the patient’s behavior. Countertransference in the psychotherapy of borderline patients must be viewed as a source of valuable diagnostic and therapeutic information and not simply as interference with the therapeutic process.