In a captivating discussion, Paul Geltner, an experienced psychoanalyst based in NYC, delves into his book on countertransference and emotional communication. He challenges traditional notions, suggesting that analysts' feelings are often induced by patients. Geltner categorizes countertransference and emphasizes its role in therapy beyond mere words, advocating for a deeper emotional connection. He also explores the evolution of emotional induction and the complexities of narcissistic countertransference, highlighting its potential for addressing patients' unmet needs.
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Modern Psychoanalysis on Countertransference
Modern psychoanalysis redefines countertransference as communication from the patient to the analyst, not just the analyst's idiosyncratic feelings.
Emotional feelings in the analytic process function as tools for understanding and interacting therapeutically beyond language.
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Emotional Induction in Communication
Feelings biologically induce corresponding feelings in others and form a pre-linguistic mode of communication.
Emotional induction offers deep insight into how patients communicate nonverbally during therapy.
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Objective vs Subjective Countertransference
Objective countertransference involves analyst's feelings paralleling patient's life experiences.
Subjective countertransference is idiosyncratic and unrelated to the patient's history, but is less common than traditionally thought.
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Countertransference Analysis and the Use of Feeling in Psychoanalytic Technique
Paul Geltner
Paul Geltner's "Emotional Communication" revolutionizes the understanding of countertransference in psychoanalysis. It challenges the traditional view that countertransference is merely the analyst's subjective response, proposing instead that it's a form of communication from the patient. The book introduces a systematic approach to analyzing countertransference, categorizing it into distinct types and providing detailed clinical examples. Geltner emphasizes the importance of emotional communication in the therapeutic process, highlighting how the analyst's feelings can be used to understand and address the patient's unmet needs. This work offers a comprehensive framework for psychoanalytic practice, enriching the field with a nuanced perspective on the therapeutic relationship.
With Emotional Communication: Countertransference Analysis and the Use of Feeling in Psychoanalytic Technique (Routledge, 2013), Paul Geltner has written the definitive textbook on countertransference. No book, to my knowledge comes even close to this accomplishment. Most analysts are taught that countertransferences are the idiosyncratic feelings of the analyst. Geltner begins with the radical assumption that all of the analyst’s feelings should be considered inductions by the patient until proven otherwise. Geltner describes the many ways in which emotional communications can be induced and expands concept of countertransference into discrete observable categories with clinically useful examples.
In this interview, Dr. Geltner discusses the Modern Psychoanalytic underpinnings of his thinking about emotional communications, the field founded by Hyman Spotnitz. He describes the different types of countertransference and how understanding what the patient is inducing in the analyst is a main focus of the Modern Psychoanalytic technique. Working beyond interpretations that a based in language, Geltner describes how the Modern Psychoanalytic theory of cure includes not only words, but also the analyst’s use of emotional communication to meet the patient’s unmet maturational needs.
Dr. Geltner is in private practice in New York City, working with individuals and couples. He specializes in individual and group supervision with psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.
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