In psychoanalysis, the analyst's displacement of
affect (i.e., transference) onto the client. More generally, the analyst's
emotional involvement in the therapeutic interaction. In the former sense
countertransference is a distorting element in a psychoanalysis and can be
disruptive; in the latter sense it is considered benign and, by some,
inevitable. Freud supported the former sense, and Jung the latter. Most current
analysts See it as inevitable and even as therapeutically useful.