Countertransference in Factitious Disorder

Abstract

In the treatment of patients with factitious disorder it is important to realize that at various levels of their experience these patients are more intimate with death than with life. This requires a particular awareness of resistance mechanisms to countertransference as well as of the importance of clinical procedures, in particular with regard to superego analysis. A requirement for establishing a psychotherapeutic alliance with patients suffering from factitious disorder is a high degree of 'therapeutic eros', hope and trust in one's own capabilities. The emphasis on a 'biophile attitude' does, however, involve the danger that the destructive potential, fantasies of death or killing, but above all feelings of guilt and shame are euphemistically interpreted and played down. A supportive superego analysis is viewed by the patient as playing down her or his 'terror of conscience' and a sense of being left alone. The therapist can be of greater help to the patient by focusing on his or her need and by escorting him or her. This requires that the therapist accept the feelings of relentlessness and hopelessness experienced by the patients in her- or himself. By relinquishing the denial of death-directed tendencies, the therapist is able to establish normality, reality and structure, and is thus in a position to exert a stabilizing effect, initially on her- or himself, but frequently also on the patient, for whom new horizons open.