Love and Hate in the Analytic Setting

Passionate feelings of love and hate are stirred in psychotherapy. Paradoxically, these passions may either undermine the therapist catastrophically or serve as the crucible in which profound understanding is forged. Transferences and countertransferences of love and hate occur on a spectrum that includes unobjectionable negative and positive feelings, relatively benign forms of love and hate, and more malignant, intractable versions of love and hate that present formidable challenges to th...