Contemporary Psychoanalysis: To Cite This Article: León Grinberg M.D. (1979) Countertransference and Projective
Contemporary Psychoanalysis: To Cite This Article: León Grinberg M.D. (1979) Countertransference and Projective
Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Publication details, including instructions for
authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uucp20
Countertransference
and Projective
Counteridentification
León Grinberg M.D.
Published online: 24 Oct 2013.
To cite this article: León Grinberg M.D. (1979) Countertransference and Projective
Counteridentification, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 15:2, 226-247, DOI:
10.1080/00107530.1979.10745579
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,
or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views
expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the
Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with
primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any
losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,
and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the
Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,
sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is
expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
LEON GRINBERG, M.D.
Countertransference
And Projective
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
Counteridentification
INTHIS PAPER* I SHALL PRESENT a synthesis of the ideas which I
have developed in various articles and books regarding the concept
of “projective counteridentification”. I first coined this term in
1957 to refer to a specific and differential aspect of counter-
transference, based on the unconscious analytic interaction be-
tween the patient and the analyst, and which is brought about by the
particularly intense use of and psychopathic modality of the
mechanism of projective identification of the patient. As a result of
the pathological quality of this mechanism, the patient is able to
induce different roles, affects and fantasies in the analyst, who
unconsciously and passively feels himself “carried along” to play
and experience them. (Grinberg, 1957).
I. Projective Identification
226
Copyright 0 I879 \C.A.\V. Institute. Neu York
All rights of repniduction in an! form reserved.
Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Vol. 15. No. 2 (IY79)
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
one to put oneself in the place of the other and therefore under-
stand his feelings better, but also for what it brings out in that
person. The subject always produces some eniouonal reaction in
the object. His attitude, the way he looks at the object, the way he
speaks, what he says, or the gestures he makes, etc., means that
there are always projective identifications at work. They stem from
the various sources which bring them about which arouse the emo-
tional responses related to the situation, i.e., sympathy, anger, sor-
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
227
LEON GRINBERG, M.D.
bances of varying degrees in the functioning of the ego vis a vis the
object. (Grinberg, 1966).
The tendencies and fantasies which correspond to each of the
libidinal stages will condition the appearance of projective identifi-
cations with oral, anal, urethral and genital contents, they will also
bring about specific modalities towards the respective object rela-
tionships. Whichever stage predominates (because of fixation or
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
228
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
Melanie Klein’s papers, especially the one dealing with her con-
cept of projective identification (Klein, 1946), are sufficiently famil-
iar to require no further commentary. Her paper “On identifica-
tion” (Klein, 1955), constitutes, at present, one of the most complete
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
* Freud, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), describes a type
of projection very similar to the projective identificationmechanism,when he points
out the projection of the ego ideal of each of the members of the army on their
commander.
229
LEON GRINBERG, M.D.
230
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
28 1
LEON GRINBERG, M.D.
232
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
of the external with the internal, with the recognition of the remote
as his own (“this (you) is me”), and the association of his own with
the remote (“that (me) is you”). “Concordant identifications”would
be a reproduction of the analyst’s own past processes which are
being relived in response to the stimulus of the patient, bringing
about a sublimated positive countertransference which determines
a greater degree of empathy.
The second type of identification, called “complementary iden-
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
233
GRINBERG, M.D.
L E ~ N
stems, for the most part, independently of his own conflicts and
corresponds in a predominant or exclusive way to the intensity and
quality of the patient’s projective identification. In this case, the
origin of the process comes from the patient and not the analyst. It
is the patient who, in an unconscious and regressive manner, and
because of the specific functional psychopathic modality of his pro-
jective identification, actively provokes a determined emotional re-
sponse in the analyst which the analyst will receive and feel in a
passive way. (Grinberg, 1963a).
In “complementary countertransference” a reaction always arises
which corresponds to the analyst’s own conflicts. On the other
hand, in “projective counteridentification” the analyst takes onto
himself a reaction or a feeling which comes from the patient.
To clarify this point, I will use one of Racker’s examples. It is the
case of a patient who threatens the analyst with commiting suicide.
Racker writes:
The anxiety which such a threat aparks off in the analyst can lead to
various reactions or defence mechanisms within him, e.g. a dislike of the
patient. These feelings, the anxiety and the loathing, would be the contents
of the “complementary countertransference”.His awareness of dislike or
loathing towards the patient can also bring about, at the same time, a guilt
feeling in the analyst which can lead to desires of reparation and to the
intensification of “concordant identification and concordant counter-
transference”.(Racker, 1960)
Now, if we analyse this extract we find both processes superim-
posed on each other or co-existing simultaneously. (This usually
happens.) The analyst experiences anxiety in the face of the suicid-
al threat. In this anxiety, two main components are evident: one
corresponds to the analyst’s own anxiety due to the feeling of re-
sponsibility which he has, when confronted with the eventual
danger of suicide of his patient which, at the same time, may repre-
sent one of the analyst’s internal objects. (It can be the patient’s
internal object which is being experienced as one of the analyst’s
own internal objects). This form of anxiety corresponds to a “com-
234
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
235
L E 6 N GRINBERG, M.D.
236
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
237
LE6N GRINBERG, M.D.
four beats and the other four in A sharp is impossible for me. The same
happens with written music; I cannot give the timing correctly to each note.
On the other hand, when my music teacher played one of the pieces I was
studying, I could play it after exactly by ear. In the session, for example, I
find it difficult to adapt to the reality of time. I don't even know what time
it is. It is as if I made my own time, which is different from your time. I can
compare it to my inhibition in music; this specific harmony which we im-
provise is the kind which allows people who don't know each other to
improvise a jam session.
While he was telling me all this, I did not fully understand what it
was that was happening. I felt quite uneasy. I felt sorry that I did
not understand sufficiently the theory and technique of music
which I have always loved. I admired and envied his knowl-
edge and apparent precision with which he described and
explained i t . . . with its technical jargon, the relationship between
rhythm, melody and harmony. I felt the need to interpret it in his
own words; it was a way of showing him that I could also play in the
same field as he and which he knew so well.
My interpretation was that I represented the chord of A major
and he the chord of A natural, but that between our beats there was
no harmony and we needed to find a rhythm and a timing between
the two of us which would harmonise so that we could improvise
(free association) together in a common melody.
The interpretation was now spoiled; it only demonstrated a par-
tial aspect and in a way different from what was essential. The
important thing would have been to show him his envy and that he
was really interested to discover which was my timing and which
was my rhythm. The meaning of his deepest fantasy began to dawn
on me and I payed attention to the following material.
The patient goes on:
I don't know why I thought that one could do all kinds of tests to a patient;
encephalograms. B.M.R.'s, a tape recording, a thermometer to take a
temperature with, an oscilloscope to record sound waves; anyway the use of
238
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
all those appliances so that you would have a better knowledge of the
patient. both inside and out.
While I was listening to him I surprised myself with a parallel and
simultaneous fantasy to have a metronome to regulate, control and
direct the time in him, that is to say, to have something which I
already knew was lacking in him. I realised exactly at that moment
all the play of his unconscious fantasy contained in his intense
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
239
LE6N GRINBERG, M.D.
I told her that what she felt was that she was having with me the
same experience that she had had at her oral examinations and
during her wedding night, because she feared I might deflower
her, introduce myself into her to look at things and examine them.
Here, too, she was behaving like a statue; the rigidity and stillness
she showed at the beginning of her session were intended to dis-
guise her anxiety, but also to prevent the actual possibility of being
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
penetrated.
Although I realised that this interpretation of her paranoid anxi-
ety was correct, I had the feeling that there was something wrong
with it. Still, I could not understand the reason for such a feeling. I
guessed that my interpretation had been rather superficial and that
the facts I had pointed out to her were too near to her conscious-
ness. I had to find out the deeper motives of her exaggerated fear
of my going into her.
On the other hand, her initial attitude of stiffness had particu-
larly attracted my attention, and I found myself, not without con-
siderable amazement, having the fantasy of analysing a corpse. A
thought came at once into my mind, which took the form of a
popular Spanish saying: “she is trying to force the dead into me”
(which meant that she wanted to burden me with the whole respon-
sibility and guilt). This thought showed me my own paranoid reac-
tion, aroused by the feeling that she was trying to project her fears
into me, through projective identification.
Based on this countertransferential feeling, I told her that with
her rigidity and silence perhaps she wanted to mean something
else, besides the representation of a statue; perhaps she wanted to
express in this way some feeling of her own, related to death.
This interpretation was a real shock to her; she began to cry and
told me that when she was six years old her mother, who had
suffered from cancer, had committed suicide. T h e patient felt re-
sponsible for her mother’s death, because she had hanged herself
in her presence, and it had been actually on account of her delay in
warning the rest of the family that the death could not be pre-
vented, as had been done in former attempts. She remembered
having watched all the arrangements her mother made and being
greatly impressed by them. Then she went out and waited for a
long while (perhaps fifteen minutes, she said); only then did she
run for help, but when her father came it was too late.
I had the feeling that with her corpse-like rigidity the patient was
240
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
not only trying to show that she carried inside a dead object, but
also, at the same time, to get rid of it by projective identification.
From that moment on, she wanted me unconsciously to take over
the responsibility, to bear “the dead”. As a defense against her
violent projective identification, with which she tried to introduce
into me a dead object, I reacted with my first interpretation, which
in fact inverted the situation: she was the one who was afraid of my
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
24 1
L E 6 N GRINBERG, M.D.
he described it. There was something more than dislike and frus-
tration in his work. He felt the attitude of the patient to be one in
which the patient mercilessly had decided to ill treat or destroy . . .
one by one . . . all the interpretations.
If the analyst had given way to his own impulses, which were well
controlled, he would have gotten up and kicked the patient. This
fantasy was that which directed his subsequent interpretation ex-
pressed with decided annoyance showing in his voice, interrupting
his patient brusquely and telling him: ‘Just a moment, you are
behaving in a way which makes me want to kick you; just like your
brother and the rest did. It’s the way you seem to want the whole
world to be against you”.
After this intervention, the analyst thought the patient would not
return. However, this did not happen and the analyst was able to
see a decided change in the patient’s attitude or behaviour.
Evidently, the interpretation was disturbed by the enormous
emotional content which the analyst demonstrated and this was
especially reflected in the analyst’s tone of voice, the way he said it
and the intention; an almost conscious wanting to convert the in-
terpretation into the concrete substitute for the “kick”. This was
due, in a large part, as the interpretation indicates, to the fact that
he was the passive receptor of the persecutory objects which the
patient projected into him as a result of the strong repetitive com-
pulsion to look for aggressions. At another level of the transference
relationship, the patient identified himself with the aggressors,
placing, through projective identification, his punished self into the
analyst, in order to make him suffer what the patient himself had
suffered. The purpose of the projection was that the analyst was
not only the depository of this suffering aspect, but changed it,
giving it the quality of a reaction to counteract its masochistic
meaning. This the analyst also did through the intervention.
242
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
243
L E 6 N GRINBERG, M.D.
nary things from the carpet and making movements as though she were
scattering something around the room, it struck me that she must been
imagining that she was dancing in a meadow, picking flowers and scatter-
ing them, and it occurred to me that she was behaving exactly like an
actress playing the part of Shakespeare’s Ophelia. The likeness to Ophelia
was all the more remarkable in that, in some peculiar way, the more gaily
and irresponsibly she was behaving, the sadder was the cffect, as though hm
gaiety itself was designed produce sadness in hm audience, just as Ophelia’s
pseudo-gay dancing and singing is designed to make the audience in the
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
244
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
245
LEON GRINBERG, M.D.
246
COUNTERTRANSFERENCE
REFERENCES
Arlow, J. A. (1963). The supervisory situation. Journal A d a n Psychoanalytic As-
sociation, 11:576-594.
Bion, W. R. (1955), Language and the schizophrenic. In: New Directions in Psycho-
Anal$, ed. M. Klein, et al., London: Tavistock, 1955.
Bion, W. R. (1961). Learning from Expencnce. London: Heinemann.
Fliess, R.(1942). Metapsychologyof the analyst. P+oandyEic Quarterly, 11:211-227.
Freud, S. (1921). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. StandardEdition, 18.
Downloaded by [University of New Hampshire] at 17:33 13 February 2015
247