The Inevitability of Countertransferential and Other Personal Responses in Psychoanalytic Education
Main Article Content
Abstract
Establishing and maintaining an open dialogue with candidates about their progress, which is crucial to providing feedback that optimally enhances candidates’ growth as analysts, may be compromised by multiple factors. The role played by faculty members’ counter-transferential and other types of personal responses will be emphasized. Such responses are inevitable – at one time or another, and to a lesser or greater extent. Becoming aware of and comfortable with the ubiquity of these phenomena and being familiar with common signs of their interference in the educational enterprise are key to effectively reducing their sustained impact. Two recommendations are made to assist in this process. One is ensuring that faculty members are familiar with these issues, including their inevitability. The second is building in forms of consultation to bring these phenomena to awareness.
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