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The Anaclitic Countertransference*
This paper clarifies the concept of the positive anaclitic countertransference as clinically observed, identified and labeled by Spotnitz in his treatment of patients whose communications remained repetitive despite long-term analysis.
Let us start with the word "anaclitic," which has been familiar to most of us in its use in the term "anaclitic depression," characterizing that morbid infant state that occurs when there is premature separation of the infant from its mother. The word is derived from the Greek anaklitos. Freud, in 1914, made reference to the term anlehungstypus in the context of marital choices. The term simply means "a leaning-on type." In the translation of Freud's works into English, the word became "anaclitic." "The libido," Freud (1927) wrote, "follows the paths of narcissistic needs and attaches itself to objects which ensure satisfaction of those needs." He labeled this choice the anaclitic type, which he distinguished from the narcissistic choice, where the partner is chosen to be as similar to oneself as possible.
In modern psychoanalysis "anaclitic" is considered synonymous with the adjective "dependent." Thus all of the narcissistic neuroses and preoedipal disorders, including schizophrenics, have their pathological origins during the stage of childhood when children are completely dependent for growth and nurturance on pregenital love objects, toward whom all their libido is directed. In treatment, unmet needs and their concomitant frustration-aggression, which lead to the narcissistic defense in childhood, become reactivated in the narcissistic transference, which has its counterpart in the narcissistic countertransference. In the treatment relationship, the analyst responding to the narcissistic transference experiences a range of feelings. These feelings define the narcissistic countertransference but do not describe the anaclitic countertransference, which develops much later in treatment and is a product of the relationship.
Two questions immediately come to mind: How does the positive anaclitic countertransference differ from the positive countertransference with which we are all familiar-and, is there an anaclitic transference which is the counterpart of the anaclitic countertransference?
A patient who comes into treatment and tells you that he is lonely, miserable and unhappy, that he did not have the mothering he needed, that his parents did not raise him right and he is depending on you to mother him and ease his suffering, would be...