The goal of this article is to demonstrate that even though there are differences between different theoretical schools in the field of psychoanalysis, a narrow convergence area has emerged: the utility of countertransference as a technical element to understand the patient. Countertransference is included in the techniques of psychoanalysis, either with its original denomination (countertransference per se), or with some correlate concept that comprises it, such as projective identification, analytic field, role-responsiveness, enactment, intersubjectivity and analytic third, character and possible histories, etc. It is a concept upon which other concepts are built but its meaning does not concern only to technique. The psychoanalytical theory has changed after such a concept, becoming a double theory, or an attachment theory, about phenomena that occur between patient and therapist, and not only with the patient. In this sense, there is a paradigm change, as the facts are not related to a single individual anymore but to an interaction between two individuals, which is understood only while a product built from both. The psychology of one became the psychology of the attachment between two. The article emphasizes how a technical element can be useful in psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The use of medication, its acceptance or not, and compliance with treatment or not can be better understood if the psychiatrist uses his or her feelings and makes an effort to understand the attachment between patient and therapist, either he or she is psychotic, borderline or neurotic. The authors conclude that countertransference is not only about the therapist's feelings during meetings, it means the wide use of the analyst's/therapist's/clinician's subjectivity to fully understand patients, as not only visible shallow phenomena will be approached, but also hidden, obscure feelings and meanings that underlie the unconscious of each individual, which determinates and defines the patients' behavior.
Countertransference; projective identification; psychoanalytic technique; psychotherapy