Strangers in a Strange Room: Transference and Countertransference Paradigms with Adoptees

Zuckerman, Janet Rivkin; Buschsbaum, Betty

doi:10.1080/15289168.2000.10486373

Cited by 2 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The adoptee may deny feeling hurt by, or be quick to blame herself for, the mistakes or mis-attunements that inevitably happen in the treatment. The analyst's countertransference may include ''fears of abandoning and disappointing the patients in the face of their intense and poignant longings'' (Zuckerman & Buschsbaum, 2000).…”

Section: Transference and Countertransference With Adopted Patientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Transference in adopted patients has a peculiar condition determined by the actual substitution of caregivers. “Various authors depict the adoptee’s defensive mission to preserve her biological parents as good objects and avoid the greater pain of knowing their limitations” (Zuckerman & Buschsbaum, 2000 , p. 12).…”

Section: Transference and Countertransference With Adopted Patientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zuckerman and Buschsbaum ( 2000 , p. 11) write that “several authors discuss a common dynamic, the intense anger at both biological and adoptive parents, which can be projected (Brinich, 1990 ; Kernberg, 1985 ) and displaced (Sherick, 1983 ) onto the therapist.”…”

Section: The Adoptee and The Analyst In The Clash Of Introjectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When anger predominates in the countertransference, the therapist could feel like the abuser the patient feared but constructed at the same time. When awash in rejection by the adoptee patient, the therapist could feel the profound disruptions she presumably knew so well (Zuckerman & Buschsbaum, 2000 , p. 11). Identical reactions, though unconscious, unmanageable and unhelpful with a lack of psychoanalytic comprehension, often hint at the adoptive parents’ inability to cope, because of their frustration for not being a fertile couple or for the disillusionment of not having achieved an idealized status of good parenthood.…”

Section: The Adoptee and The Analyst In The Clash Of Introjectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Adoptee and The Analyst In The Clash Of Introjectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Psychoanalysis versus adoption: analytic parenthood and parental countertransference

Guasto

2020

Am J Psychoanal

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As we know, Sándor Ferenczi compared the analytic and adoptive relationships as the psychoanalyst exercises a parental role to some extent. The author notes that a commonality between the adoptive relationship and the analytic one is that if the parental couple is burdened with painful counter-transferential experiences and feelings that have not been worked through, these can pose a danger for the strength of the newly developing parental relationship. In the analytic situation the analyst’s position implies the risk of conflict with the parental internal objects resulting from the primary introjections, especially if the original environment was abusive or severely neglectful. Similarly, the adoptive family is often burdened with revengeful and competitive aggressiveness of their own introjected parental objects, having as a main task to keep unified the pre-adoptive autobiographical memories that were dissociated and interrupted. In such cases it is very important to give the adoptive parents help so as to cope with their difficult “countertransference,” supporting them to reduce their sense of guilt and unsuitability to nurse their children, especially if the adoptive parents feel guilty because of their own infertility. In this paper the author describes two cases concerning both situations, emphasising the clinical risks and the evolutionary potentialities.

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Section: Transference and Countertransference With Adopted Patientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transference and Countertransference With Adopted Patientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Adoptee and The Analyst In The Clash Of Introjectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Adoptee and The Analyst In The Clash Of Introjectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Adoptee and The Analyst In The Clash Of Introjectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Psychoanalysis versus adoption: analytic parenthood and parental countertransference

Guasto

2020

Am J Psychoanal

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Children in Adoptive Families: Overview and Update

Nickman

Rosenfeld

Fine

et al. 2005

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psych

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Strangers in a Strange Room: Transference and Countertransference Paradigms with Adoptees

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

Psychoanalysis versus adoption: analytic parenthood and parental countertransference

Psychoanalysis versus adoption: analytic parenthood and parental countertransference

Children in Adoptive Families: Overview and Update

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