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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
Vol. xxx 1949 Part 2

ORIGINAL PAPERS
HATE IN THE COUNTER-TRANSFERENCEl
By D. W. WINNlCOIT, LoNDON

In this paper I wish to examine one aspect of in any way take him into the analytic type of
the whole subject of ambivalency, namely, hate relationship to patients.
in the counter-transference. I believe that the To help the general psychiatrist the psycho-
task of the analyst (call him a research analyst) analyst must not only study for him the primi-
who undertakes the analysis of a psychotic is tive stages of the emotional development of the
seriously weighted by this phenomenon, and ill individual, but also must study the nature of
that analysis of psychotics becomes impossible the emotional burden which the psychiatrist
unless the analyst's own hate is extremely bears in doing his work. What we as analysts
well sorted-out and conscious. This is tanta- call the counter-transference needs to be under-
mount to saying that an analyst needs to be stood by the psychiatrist too. However much
himself analysed, but it also asserts that the he loves his patients he cannot avoid hating
analysis of a psychotic is irksome as compared them, and fearing them, and the better he knows
with that of a neurotic, and inherently so. this the less will hate and fear be the motive
Apart from psycho-analytic treatment, the determining what he does to his patients.
management of a psychotic is bound to be
irksome. From time to time 2 3 I have made STATEMEr.'T OF THEME
acutely critical remarks about the modem One could classify counter-transference phe-
trends in psychiatry, with the too easy electric nomena thus :
shocks and the too drastic leucotomies. Be- (I) Abnormality in counter-transference feel-
cause of these criticisms that I have expressed I ings, and set relationships and identifica-
would like to be foremost in recognition of the tions that are under repression in the
extreme difficulty inherent in the task of the analyst. The comment on this is that
psychiatrist, and of the mental nurse in par- the analyst needs more analysis, and we
ticular, Insane patients must always be a believe this is less of an issue among
heavy emotional burden on those who care for psycho-analysts than among psycho-
them. One can forgive those who do this work therapists in general.
if they do awful things. This does not mean, (2) The identifications and tendencies belong-
however, that we have to accept whatever is ing to an analyst's personal experiences
done by psychiatrists and neuro-surgeons as and personal development which pro-
sound according to principles of science. vide the positive setting for his analytic
Therefore although what follows is about work and make his work different in
psycho-analysis, it really has value to the quality from that of any other analyst.
psychiatrist, even to one whose work does not (3) From these two I distinguish the truly

1 Based on a paper read to the British Psycho- Therapy of Mental Disorder.' Brit. Med. J., May 17,
Analytical Society on 5th February, 1947. 1947, i., 688.
• Brit. Med. J. correspondence (1947) and • Physical • • Leueotomy," Brit. Med. Students' J., Spring, 1949,
3,2,35.
~ 6
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70 D. W. WINNICOTT
objective counter-transference, or if that position. Above all he must not deny hate
this is difficult, the analyst's love and that really exists in himself. Hate that is
hate in reaction to the actual personality justified in the present setting has to be sorted
and behaviour of the patient, based on out and kept in storage and available for
objective observation. eventual interpretation.
I suggest that if an analyst is to analyse If we are to become able to be the analysts of
psychotics or anti-socials he must be able to psychotic patients we must have reached down
be so thoroughly aware of the counter-trans- to very primitive things in ourselves, and this is
ference that he can sort out and study his but another example of the fact that the answer
objective reactions to the patient. These will to many obscure problems of psycho-analytic
include hate. Counter-transference phenomena practice lies in further analysis of the analyst.
will at times be the important things in the (Psycho-analytic research is perhaps always to
analysis. some extent an attempt on the part of an analyst
The Motive imputed to the Analyst by the to carry the work of his OViD analysis further
Patient than the point to which his own analyst could
I wish to suggest that the patient can only get him.)
appreciate in the analyst what he himself is A main task of the analyst of any patient is
capable of feeling. In the matter of motive; to maintain objectivity in regard to all that the
the obsessional will tend to be thinking of the patient brings, and a special case of this is the
analyst as doing his work in a futile obsessional analyst's need to be able to hate the patient
way. A hypo-manic patient who is incapable objectively.
of being depressed, except in a severe mood Are there not many situations in our ordinary
swing, and in whose emotional development the analytic work in which the analyst's hate is
depressive position has not been securely won, justified? A patient of mine, a very bad obses-
who cannot feel guilt in a deep way, or a sense sional, was almost loathsome to me for some
of concern Of. responsibility, is unable to see years. I felt bad about this until the analysis
the analyst's work as an attempt on the part of turned a corner and the patient became lovable,
the analyst to make reparation in respect of his and then I realized that his unlikeableness had
own (the analyst's) guilt feelings. A neurotic been an active symptom, unconsciously deter-
patient tends to see the analyst as ambivalent mined. It was indeed a wonderful day for me
towards the patient, and to expect the analyst to (much later on) when I could actually tell the
show a splitting of love and hate; this patient, patient that I and his friends had felt repelled
when in luck, gets the love, because someone by him, but that he had been too ill for us to
else is getting the analyst's hate. Would it not let him know. This was also an important day
follow that if a psychotic is in a • coincident for him, a tremendous advance in his adjust-
love-hate' state of feeling he experiences a ment to reality.
deep conviction that the analyst is also only In the ordinary analysis the analyst has no
capable of the same crude and dangerous state difficulty with the management of his own hate.
of coincident love-hate relationship? Should This hate remains latent. The main thing, of
the analyst show love he will surely at the same course, is that through his own analysis he has
moment kill the patient. become free from vast reservoirs of unconscious
This coincidence of love and hate is some- hate belonging to the past and to inner conflicts.
thing that characteristically recurs in the analysis There are other reasons why hate remains
ofpsychotics, giving rise to problems of manage- unexpressed and even unfelt as such:
ment which can easily take the analyst beyond (1) Analysis is my chosen job, the way I
his resources. This coincidence of love and feel I will best deal with: my own guilt,
hate to which I am referring is something which the way I can express myself in a con-
is distinct from the aggressive component com- structive way.
plicating the primitive love impulse and implies (2) I get paid, or I am in training to gain a-
that in the history of the patient there was an place in society by psycho-analytic
environmental failure at the time of the first work.
object-finding instinctual impulses. (3) 'I am discovering things.
ITthe 'analyst is going to have crude feelings (4) I get immediate rewards through identi-
imputed to him he is best forewarned and so fication with the patient, who is making
forearmed, for he must tolerate being placed in progress, and I can see still greater
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HATE IN THE COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE 71

rewards some way ahead, after the end In the next phase of the dream I was aware
'of the treatment. that the people in the stalls were watching a play
(5) Moreover, as an analyst I have ways of and I was now related to what was going on on
expressing hate. Hate is expressed by the stage through them. A new kind of anxiety
the existence ofthe end of the' hour ', now developed. What I knew was that I had no
I think this is true even when there is right side of my body at all. This was not a
no difficulty whatever, and when the castration dream. It was a sense of not having
patient is pleased to go. In many that part of the body.
analyses these things can be taken for As I woke I was aware of having understood
granted, so that they are scarcely at a very deep level what was my difficulty at
mentioned. and the analytic work is that particular time. The first part of the dream
done through verbal interpretations of represented the ordinary anxieties that might
the patient's emerging unconscious develop in respect of unconscious fantasies of
transference. The analyst takes over my neurotic patients. I would be in danger of
the role of one or other of the helpful losing my hand or my fingers if these patients
figures of the patient's childhood. He should become interested in them. With this
cashes in on the success of those who kind of anxiety I was familiar, and it was com-
did the dirty work when the patient paratively tolerable.
was an infant. The second part of the dream, however,
These things are part of the description of referred to my relation to the psychotic patient.
ordinary psycho-analytic work, which is mostly This patient was requiring of me that I should
concerned with patients whose symptoms have a have no relation to her body at all, not even
neurotic quality. an imaginative one; there was no body that
In the analysis of psychotics, however, quite she recognized as hers and if she existed at all
a different type and degree of strain is taken by she could only feel herself to be a mind. Any
the analyst, and it is precisely this different reference to her body produced paranoid
strain that I am trying to describe. anxieties because to claim that she had a body
was to persecute her. What she needed of me
Illustration of Counter-Transference Anxiety was that I should have only a mind speaking to
Recently for a period of a few days I found I her mind. At the culmination of my difficulties
was doing bad work. I made mistakes in on the evening before the dream I had become
respect of each one of my patients. The difficulty irritated and had said that what she was needing
was in myself and it was partly personal but of me was little better than hair-splitting. This
chiefly associated with a climax that I had had had a disastrous effect and it took many
reached in my relation to one particular psy- weeks for the analysis to recover from my
chotic (research) patient. The difficulty cleared lapse. The essential thing, however, was that I
up when I had what is sometimes called a should understand my own anxiety and this
, healing , dream. (Incidentally I would add was represented in the dream by the absence of
that during illy analysis and in the years since the right side of my body when I tried to get
the end of my analysis I have had a long series into relation to the play that the people in the
of these healing dreams which, although in stalls were watching. This right side of my
many cases unpleasant, have each one of them body was the side related to this particular
marked my arrival at a new stage in emotional patient and was therefore affected by her need
development.) to deny absolutely even an imaginative relation-
On this particular occasion I was aware of ship of our bodies. This denial was producing
the meaning of the dream as I woke or even in me this psychotic type of anxiety, much less
before I woke. The dream had two phases. tolerable than ordinary castration anxiety.
In the first I was in the gods in a theatre and Whatever other interpretations might be made
looking down on the people a long way below in respect of this dream the result of my having
in the stalls. I felt severe anxiety as if I might dreamed it and remembered it was that I was
lose a limb. This was associated with the able to take up this analysis again and even to
feeling I have had at the top of the Eiffel Tower heal the harm done to it by my irritability which
that if I put my hand over the edge it would fall had its origin in a reactive anxiety of a quality
off on to the ground below. This would be that was appropriate to my contact with a
ordinary castration anxiety. patient with no body.
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72 D. W. WINNICOTT

Postponement of Interpretation certain analyses the analyst's hate is actually

The analyst must be prepared to bear strain sought by the patient, and what is then needed
without expecting the patient to know anything is hate that is objective. If the patient seeks
about what he is doing, perhaps over a long objective or justified hate he must be able to
period of time. To do this he must be easily reach it, else he cannot feel he can reach
aware of his own fear and hate. He is in the objective love.
position of the mother of an infant unborn or It is perhaps relevant here to cite the case of
newly born. Eventually, he ought to be able to the child of the broken home, or the child
tell his patient what he has been through on the without parents. Such a child spends his time
patient's behalf, but an analysis may never get unconsciously looking for his parents. It is
as far as this. There may be too little good notoriously inadequate to take such a child into
experience in the patient's past to work on. one's home and to love him. What happens is
What if there be no satisfactory relationship of that after a while a child so adopted gains hope,
early infancy for the analyst to exploit in the and then he starts to test out the environment
transference? he has found, and to seek proof of his guardians'
There is a vast difference between those ability to hate objectively. It seems that he
patients who have had satisfactory early experi- can believe in being loved only after reaching
ences which can be discovered in the trans- being hated.
ference, and those whose very early experiences During the second world war a boy of nine
have been so deficient or distorted that the came to a hostel for evacuated children, sent
analyst has to be the first in the patient's life from London not because of bombs but because
to supply certain environmental essentials. In of truancy. I hoped to give him some treatment
the treatment of the patient of the latter kind during his stay in the hostel, but his symptom
all sorts of things in analytic technique become won and he ran away as he had always done
vitally important that can be taken for granted from everywhere since the age of six when he
in the treatment of patients of the former type. first ran away from home. However, I had
I asked an analyst who confines his attention established contact with him in one interview
to neurotics whether he does analysis in the in which I could see and interpret through a
dark, and he said, • Why, no! Surely our job drawing of his that in running away he was
is to provide an ordinary environment, and the unconsciously saving the inside of his home and
dark would be extraordinary.' He was sur- preserving his mother from assault, as well as
prised at my question. He was orientated trying to get away from his own inner world
towards analysis of neurotics. But this provi- which was full of persecutors.
sion and maintenance of an ordinary environ- I was not very surprised when he turned up
ment can be in itself a vitally important thing in the police station very near my home. This
in the analysis of a psychotic, in fact it can be, was one of the few police stations that did not
at times, even more important than the verbal know him intimately. My wife very generously
interpretations which also have to be given. took him in and kept him for three months,
For the neurotic the couch and warmth and three months of hell. He was the most lovable
comfort can be symbolical of the mother's love; and most maddening of children, often stark
for the psychotic it would be more true to say staring mad. But fortunately we knew what to
that these things are the analyst's physical expect. We dealt with the first phase by giving
expression of love. The couch is the analyst's him complete freedom and a shilling whenever
lap or womb, and the warmth is the live warmth he went out. He had only to ring up and we
of the analyst's body. And so on. fetched him from whatever police station had
taken charge of him.
Soon the expected change-over occurred,
Objective Hate Under Test the truancy symptom turned round, and the
There is, I hope, a progression in my state- boy started dramatizing the assault on the
ment of my subject. The analyst's hate is inside. It was really a whole-time job for the
ordinarily latent and is easily kept latent. In two of us together, and when I was out the worst
analysis of psychotics the analyst is under episodes took place.
greater strain to keep his hate latent, and he Interpretation had to be made at any minute
can only do this by being thoroughly aware of of day or night, and often the only solution in
it. Now I want to add that in certain stages of a crisis was to make the correct interpretation,
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HATE IN THE COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE 73

as if the boy were in analysis. It was the correct we become aware that the attitudes of love and
interpretation that he valued above everything. hate cannot be said to characterize the relation
The important thing for the purpose of this of instincts to their objects, but are reserved for
paper is the way in which the evolution of the the relations of the ego as a whole to objects.
boy's personality engendered hate in me, and . . .' This I feel is true and important. Does
what I did about it. this not mean that the personality must be
Did I hit him? The answer is no, I never hit. integrated before an infant can be said to hate?
But I should have had to have done so if I had However early integration may be achieved-
not known all about my hate and if I had not perhaps integration occurs earliest at the height
let him know about it too. At crises I would of excitement or rage-there is a theoretical
take him by bodily strength, and without anger earlier stage in which whatever the infant does
or blame, and put him outside the front door, that hurts is not done in hate. I have used the
whatever the weather or the time of day or word . ruthless love' in describing this stage.
night. There was a special bell he could ring, Is this acceptable? As the infant becomes able
and he knew that if he rang it he would be re- to feel a whole person, so does the word hate
admitted and no word said about the past. He develop meaning as a description of a certain
used this bell as soon as he had recovered from group of his feelings.
his maniacal attack. The mother, however, hates her infant from
The important thing is that each time, just the word go. I believe Freud thought it pos-
as I put him outside the door, I told him some- sible that a mother may under certain circum-
thing; I said that what had happened had made stances have only love for her boy baby; but
rae hate him. This was easy because it was so we may doubt this. We know about a mother's
true. love and we appreciate its reality and power.
I think these words were important from the Let me give some of the reasons why a mother
point of view of his progress, but they were hates her baby, even a boy.
mainly important in enabling me to tolerate the A. The baby is not her own (mental) con-
situation without letting out, without losing my ception.
temper and every now and again murdering B. The baby is not the one of childhood play,
him. father's child, brother's child, etc.
This boy's full story cannot be told here. He C. The baby is not magically produced.
went to an Approved School. His deeply D. The baby is a danger to her body in preg-
rooted relation to us has remained one of the nancy and at birth.
few stable things in his life. This episode from E. The baby is an interference with her private
ordinary life can be used to illustrate the general life, a challenge to preoccupation.
topic of hate justified in the present; this is to F . To a greater or lesser extent a mother feels
be distinguished from hate that is only justified that her own mother demands a baby, so
in another setting but which is tapped by some that her baby is produced to placate her
action of a patient (child). mother.
G. The baby burts her nipples even by suck-
A Mother's Love and Hate ling, which is at first a chewing activity.
Out of all the complexity of the problem of H. He is ruthless, treats her as sewn. an
hate and its roots I want to resese one thing, unpaid servant, a slave.
because I believe it has an importance for the I. She has to love him.e~retions and all, at
analyst of psythoticpatietns~ I~gest that the allY rate at the beginniAg.till hehas.doubts
mother hates the baby before the baby hates the about himself.
mother, and before the baby can know his J. He tries to hurt her, periodically bites her,
mother bates him. all in love.
Before developing this theme I want to refer K. He shows disillusionment about her.
to Freud's remarks," In InstincB- and their L His excited love is cupboard love. so that
Vicissitudes (1915) (where he says so much that having got what he wants he throws her
is original and illuminating about hate), Freud away like orange peel.
says: • we might at a pinch say of an instinct M. The baby at first must dominate. he must be
that it "loves" the objects after which it protected from coincidences, life mnst
strives for purposes of satisfaction, but to say unfold at the baby's rate and all this needs
that it " hates .. an object strikes us as odd, so his mother's continuous and detailed study.
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74 D. W. WINNICOTT
For instance, she must not be anxious when It seems to me doubtful whether a human child
holding him, etc. as he develops is capable of tolerating the full
N. At first he does not know at all what she extent of his own hate in a sentimental environ-
does or what she sacrifices for him. Espe- ment. He needs hate to hate.
cially he cannot allow for her hate. If this is true, a psychotic patient in analysis
O. He is suspicious, refuses her good food, and cannot be expected to tolerate his hate of the
makes her doubt herself, but eats well with analyst unless the analyst can hate him.
his aunt.
P. After an awful morning with him she goes Practical Problem of Interpretation
out, and he smiles at a stranger, who says: If all this is accepted there remains for dis-
• Isn't he sweet ! ' cussion the question of the interpretation of the
Q. If she fails him at the start she knows he analyst's hate to the patient. This is obviously
will pay her out for ever. a matter fraught with danger, and it needs the
R. He excites her but frustrates-she mustn't most careful timing. But I believe an analysis is
eat him or trade in sex with him. incomplete if even towards the end it has not
I think that in the analysis of psychotics, and been possible for the analyst to tell the patient
in the ultimate stages of the analysis, even of a what he, the analyst, did unbeknown for the
normal person, the analyst must find himself in a patient whilst he was ill, in the early stages.
position comparable to that of the mother of a Until the interpretation is made the patient is
new-born baby. When deeply regressed the kept to some extent in the position of infant,
patient cannot identify with the analyst or one who cannot understand what he owes to
appreciate his point of view any more than the his mother.
feetus or newly born infant can sympathize with
the mother. Summary
A mother has to be able to tolerate hating An analyst has to display all the patience and
her baby without doing anything about it. tolerance and reliability of a mother devoted
She cannot express it to him. If, for fear of to her infant, has to recognize the patient's
what she may do, she cannot hate appropriately wishes as needs, has to put aside other interests
when hurt by her child she must fall back on in order to be available and to be punctual, and
masochism, and I think it is this that gives rise objective, and has to seem to want to give what
to the false theory of a natural masochism in is really only given because of the patient's needs.
women. The most remarkable thing about a There may be a long initial period in which
mother is her ability to be hurt so much by her the analyst's point of view cannot be (even
baby and to hate so much without paying the unconsciously) appreciated by the patient.
child out, and her ability to wait for rewards Acknowledgment cannot be expected because
that mayor may not come at a later date. at the primitive root of the patient that is being
Perhaps she is helped by some of the nursery looked for there is no capacity for identification
rhymes she sings, which her baby enjoys but with the analyst, and certainly the patient cannot
fortunately does not understand ? see that the analyst's hate is often engendered
by the very things the patient does in his crude
• RockabyeBaby, on the tree top, way of loving.
When the wind blowsthe cradle will rock, In the analysis (research analysis) or in
When the boughbreaksthe cradlewill fall,
Down will come baby, cradle and all.' ordinary management of the more psychotic
type of patient, a great strain is put on the analyst
I think of a mother (or father) playing with a (psychiatrist, mental nurse) and it is important
small infant; the infant enjoying the play and to study the ways in which anxiety of psychotic
not knowing that the parent is expressing hate quality and also hate are produced in those who
in the words, perhaps in birth symbolism. work with severely ill psychiatric patients.
This is not a sentimental rhyme. Sentimentality Only in this way can there be any hope of the
is useless for parents, as it contains a denial of avoidance of therapy that is adapted to the needs
hate, and sentimentality in a mother is no good of the therapist rather than to the needs of the
at all from the infant's point of view. patient.
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