Keywords
Abstract
After Freud’s death and with the emergence of new theoretical trends, the notion of countertransference acquired ever-growing importance in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Since the 1940s, psychoanalysts have repeatedly re-defined and re-elaborated this notion. Such revisions though led away from Freud’s thought and deserted the few but fundamental
rules of technique he imparted in relation to clinical practice. This article examines clinical case studies of important psychoanalysts, showing how the departure from Freud can cause technical mistakes, such as furor sanandi, making free associations in place of the patient, early and groundless interpretation, and the defense at all costs of an unjustified cognitive supremacy over the patient.