Empirical support for the use and further study of the countertransference construct in the clinical care of patients with bipolar disorder.

Abstract

We thank Andrew Shaw and colleagues for their recent paper1 inBipolar Disorders, highlightingthat theeffectivetreatment of patients with bipolar disorder requires a good therapeutic alliance,which is related to the clinicians' countertransference reactions and their management. The authorssuggestthat the integration of a psychodynamic approach into the biological paradigm in psychiatry might be helpful to increase countertransference awareness in clinicians, andpotentially improvingdyadic communication,resolution ofalliance ruptures, and treatment adherence. Theyalsomention that although the theoretical literature on countertransference is well developed, no good empirical studies exist that investigate the countertransferential responses experienced by mental health clinicians involved in the care of individualsduring acute phases of bipolar disorder. We would, however, like to add some examples of empirical evidence for the use (and further study) of the countertransference in the clinical care of these patients.