Technical Approaches to Transference Hate in the Analysis of Borderline Patients

Freud (1915) once noted that the only truly significant obstacles likely to be encountered by the analyst are those involving the management of trans ference. Among the panoply of transference feelings directed at the analyst, intense hatred is perhaps the most difficult to endure. Analysts may be drawn to the field, at least in part, because the practice of analysis itself serves as a reaction formation against hatred, aggression, and sadism (McLaughlin, 1961); (Menninger, 1957); (Schafer, 1954). The experience of being hated day in and day out tends to erode one’s carefully constructed defences against hating one’s patient. Moreover, the analyst’s conscious altruistic wishes to help others are also thwarted by the hateful patient, occasionally leading the analyst to question whether the whole analytic endeavour in this particular instance is a waste of time and energy.