There are a handful of terms in psychotherapy that get used so often they start to lose their meaning. Transference and countertransference are two of them. We use them a lot but if you got a room full of us therapists together, we’d give you varying definitions of what they mean.

If you have ever sat in a session and felt a wave of irritation you could not quite account for, or noticed yourself unexpectedly sleepy, you already know what we’re about to discuss. Understanding what is happening in those moments, and learning to use the information, can be a challenging aspect of our therapy work.

Want to learn more?  Join the upcoming training “Transference and Countertransference” with Victoria Settle, taking place on Friday 6th November 2026.

Where the idea of transference came from

The story starts with Josef Breuer’s treatment of Bertha Pappenheim, known in the case literature as Anna O, in Vienna in the early 1880s. As her treatment progressed, Anna O began relating to Breuer with an intensity that went well beyond the therapeutic relationship, and Breuer became sufficiently unsettled by it that he brought the treatment to a sudden end (Breuer and Freud, 1895). Freud, who had discussed the case closely with Breuer, took this as more than an awkward one-off and used it as a starting point for what he would go on to describe as transference.

Freud’s own early clinical work built on this, as he noticed that patients would relate to him in ways that seemed to belong to earlier relationships rather than to the actual person in the room (Freud, 1912)

A client might find themselves feeling inexplicably dependent, idealising, or defensive, without any conscious sense of why. Part of our skill as practitioners is learning to notice these dynamics without rushing to interpret them or brushing them aside.What makes transference tricky is that it operates largely outside conscious awareness, both for the client and, often, for us. Instead, it shows up in the texture of the relationship itself, in the tone of a session, in what a client seems to expect from us, or in the particular flavour of tension that appears at certain points in the work.

Countertransference, from obstacle to information

For a long time, countertransference was treated mainly as a problem, something the therapist needed to manage or analyse away so it did not contaminate the work. Paula Heimann’s influential 1950 paper shifted this thinking considerably, proposing that the therapist’s emotional response to the client is not an obstacle but a valuable instrument of understanding, offering clues to what the client cannot yet put into words themselves (Heimann, 1950).

Heinrich Racker built on this by distinguishing between concordant and complementary identifications (Racker, 1968). In concordant identification, we find ourselves resonating with the client’s own experience, feeling something of what they feel.

In complementary identification, we find ourselves stepping into the shoes of someone else in the client’s internal world, perhaps a harsh parent or a neglectful partner, and feeling what that other person might have felt towards our client.

Learning to tell these apart, and to ask ourselves whose feeling this actually is, can transform a confusing countertransference reaction into an extremely useful piece of clinical information.

Why this matters day to day

When we can notice transference and countertransference without immediately labelling everything as one or the other, we get access to some of the richest material available to us in the room. A client’s sudden shift in tone, our own unexpected flatness or protectiveness, for example.

The challenge, of course, is that these concepts can become a bit of a catch all. It is tempting to describe everything a client feels towards us as transference, and everything we feel towards a client as countertransference, until the terms stop meaning very much at all. Getting more precise about what is actually happening, and where a particular feeling belongs, will sharpen our clinical thinking.

Whatever our modality, and whether we are newly qualified or have been practising for decades, transference and countertransference will be present in our work in some form. Learning to work with them thoughtfully is a skill that keeps developing throughout our careers.

Join us for a closer look

If this is a topic you would like to get into properly, you are welcome to join us for a one day CPD workshop on Transference and Countertransference with Victoria Settle on Friday 6th November 2026, online via Zoom, from 10am to 4pm GMT. Tori is the current Chair of Education, and former CEO, of The Bowlby Centre in London, and is a wonderfully clear and generous teacher.

We will take a proper nuts and bolts look at both concepts, exploring the different ways transference shows up, not just in what clients say but in the felt sense of the relationship, and how to work with countertransference thoughtfully. The day is suitable for counsellors and psychotherapists of any modality, whether you are newly qualified or have been in the room for years.

Can’t make the date? The session is recorded and available on catch up for 28 days afterwards, so you can still take part in your own time.

Discounted tickets are £99 until Sunday 11th October 2026, subject to availability, and standard tickets are £119. You can find full details and book your place here: Transference and Countertransference workshop page.

References

Breuer, J. and Freud, S. (1895) Studies on Hysteria. Standard Edition, Vol. 2. London, Hogarth Press.

Freud, S. (1912) The Dynamics of Transference. Standard Edition, Vol. 12. London, Hogarth Press.

Heimann, P. (1950) On Counter-Transference. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 31, pp. 81 to 84.

Racker, H. (1968) Transference and Countertransference. London, Karnac Books.

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