The transference mirage and the pitfalls of countertransference (with special emphasis on adolescence)

This chapter describes some characteristics of transference and counter transference with adolescent patients which are linked to the developmental process itself. Theories of transference that are derived mainly from work with severely disturbed patients—as well as from a particular emphasis on non-verbal communication—should at least elicit reservations. E. Laufer and M. Laufer have highlighted how the destructive impulses become an essential part of the transference relationship in the analytic work with ill adolescents. To start with, counter transference was conceived by S. Freud as interferences with the analyst's ability to understand her patient, which meant residual pathology within the analyst; hence the necessity for him to undergo a new analysis. The chapter provides a parallel between transference and adolescence in that the adolescent's task is to constitute an identity whilst feeling that he is constantly at risk of facing appropriation and alienation.