Countertransference in the treatment of the borderline personality.

The emotional pressure and transferences of patients to their physicians and other caregivers are natural, inevitable occurrences that are not restricted to therapeutic situations in which one is using a dynamic approach. Transferences are present in all relationships but are scrutinized in intensive dynamic psychotherapy. This article presents clinical examples that illustrate the intense pressures, often near-psychotic, exerted by certain borderline patients, which are unconsciously targeted to force a specific type of response from the therapist.