The analyst as an autistic object On differentiating the dimensionality of countertransference feelings

摘要

By means of a detailed clinical psychoanalytic case report several severe phenomena of countertransference are described, which considerably impaired the ego-function of the analyst and led to stagnation of the psychoanalytic process. In doing so it is shown that due to resistance to massive anxieties the analyst was faced with adhesive identifications and especially used as an autistic object by the patient. Thereby the three-dimensional inner world temporarily collapsed and first had to be rebuilt. Potential relationships between autistic objects and perverse object relations are discussed.