Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:508-511
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Institutional countertransference
MH Gendel and DE Reiser
The authors present the case of a patient with an institutional
transference and point out the existence of institutional
countertransference, which confounded his therapy and obscured his
potential for change. Confronted with the patient's tradition in the
institution, the new therapist had to overcome feelings of unimportance and
therapeutic impotence to focus on the patient as a person in his own right.
The authors discuss the signs of institutional countertransference and
describe how it can seriously hinder clinical assessment of patients with
institutional transferences.
