The Wounded Healer

Countertransference is an important part of the analytical process. It is concerned with the analyst's emotional response to the patient. As such, it can be a particularly difficult aspect of the analytical setting and especially so because of the threat of possible sexual involvement with the patient. At present there is little available on this difficult topic. Jungian analyst David Sedgwick tackles the subject bravely and shows how to use the countertransference in a positive way. The result is one of the finest Jungian clinical texts of recent years.

Countertransference is an important part of the analytical process. It is concerned with the analyst's emotional response to the patient. As such, it can be a particularly difficult aspect of the analytical setting and especially so because of the threat of possible sexual involvement with the patient. At present there is little available on this difficult topic. Jungian analyst David Sedgwick tackles the subject bravely and shows how to use the countertransference in a positive way. The result is one of the finest Jungian clinical texts of recent years.

In the years since the publication of The Wounded Healer , countertransference has become a central consideration in the analytic process. David Sedgwick’s work was ground-breaking in tackling this difficult topic from a Jungian perspective and demonstrating how countertransference can be used in positive ways. Sedgwick’s extended study of the process candidly presents the analyst’s struggles and shows how the analyst is, as Jung said, "as much in the analysis as the patient." The book extends Jung’s prescient work on countertransference to create a dynamic view of the analyst-patient interaction, stressing the importance of the analyst’s own woundedness and how this may be used in conjunction with the patient’s own. Sedgwick begins with a discussion of the need and justification for a Jungian approach to countertransference, then reviews Jungian theories and presents detailed illustrations of cases showing the complexity of transference-countertransference processes in both the patient and the analyst, and concludes with a model of countertransference processing. This Classic Edition also includes a new introduction by the author. It will be an important work for Jungian analysts, psychotherapists and other clinicians and students interested in the struggles of the therapeutic process.

In the years since the publication of The Wounded Healer , countertransference has become a central consideration in the analytic process. David Sedgwick’s work was ground-breaking in tackling this difficult topic from a Jungian perspective and demonstrating how countertransference can be used in positive ways. Sedgwick’s extended study of the process candidly presents the analyst’s struggles and shows how the analyst is, as Jung said, "as much in the analysis as the patient." The book extends Jung’s prescient work on countertransference to create a dynamic view of the analyst-patient interaction, stressing the importance of the analyst’s own woundedness and how this may be used in conjunction with the patient’s own. Sedgwick begins with a discussion of the need and justification for a Jungian approach to countertransference, then reviews Jungian theories and presents detailed illustrations of cases showing the complexity of transference-countertransference processes in both the patient and the analyst, and concludes with a model of countertransference processing. This Classic Edition also includes a new introduction by the author. It will be an important work for Jungian analysts, psychotherapists and other clinicians and students interested in the struggles of the therapeutic process.