Countertransference during an analyst's brief illness.

Abstract

This paper describes an example of acting out of countertransference during a brief but unexpected serious illness. My emphasis is on the regression that occurred with hospitalization and how it dovetailed with a particular patient's transference. A confluence of my residual neurosis, the patient's neurosis, her transference state, her other characteristics (that she was female, for example), plus the fact that she was the last patient contacted, all conspired with the regression from the trauma of being hospitalized to produce the countertransference reaction. This presentation is also intended to add to the very sparse literature on a distasteful subject of supreme importance.