countertransference and the expert therapist, this study looks at how beginning therapists rate five factors theorized to be important in countertransference management: (I) anxiety management, (2) conceptualizing skills, (3) empathic ability, (4) self-insight and (5) self-integration. Using an adaptation of theCountertransference Factors Inventory (CFI) designed for the previouslymentioned studies, 48 beginning therapists (34 women, 14 men) rated 50statements as to their value in managing countertransference. Together, thesestatements make up subscales representing the five countertransferencemanagement factors. Beginners rated the factors similarly to experts, both ratingself-insight and self-integration highest. In looking at the personal characteristicswhich might influence one's rating of the factors, males and females ratedself-insight and self-integration highest. As months in personal and/or grouppsychotherapy went up, the factors' ratings went down, and an even strongernegative correlation was found with age. Generally, beginners rated the factorshigher than the experts. Beginners who are older and/or have had more therapyrated the factors more like the experts. The word countertransference was coined by Sigmund Freud in approxirnately theyear 1901, at the dawning of psychoanalysis. In classical psychoanalysis,transference was seen as a distortion in the therapeutic relationship which occurredwhen the client unconsciously misperceived the therapist as having personalitycharacteristics similar to someone in his/her past, while countertransferencereferred to the analyst's unconscious, neurotic reaction to the patient's transference(Freud, 1910/1959). Freud believed that countertransference impedes therapy, andthat the analyst must recognize his/her countertransference in order to overcome it. In recent years, some schools of psychotherapy have expanded the definition ofcountertransference to include all conscious and unconsciou...
