Transfer, Countertransference and Link: Clinical Approach

Abstract

This paper summarizes the presentation for the panel "Transference, countertransference and bond: a clinical approach",  which was held as a semi plenary session in the XXVIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Psicoanálisis de Fepal (Bogotá September 2010). The writer's comment on the subject stems from a clinical material which was submitted to the Scientific Committee of the congress in order to be used as a starting point for the presentation. The material describes 4 sessions of the analysis of an adult male patient who shows great concern about his sexuality and identity. The notions of transference, countertransference and bond are discussed, emphasizing the way in which these notions were conceived of and used in the clinical material. The writer mentions the analytic theories that emerge in her mind as she reads the clinical material. The paper also indicates how necessary it is for certain aspects of the analytic theory to be reconsidered as regards homosexuality. The paper shows, as well, how the metaphors used in the interpretive activity of the analyst consolidate the establishment of the analytic bond, at the same time as they facilitate the processesbof psychic change.