ABSTRACT
Therapists who work with lesbian patients display the characteristic range of countertransference phenomena with which clinicians are familiar but they also may show special reactions to their patients' sexual identity, background, and lifestyle, irrespective of the therapists' sexual identity. It is advisable for clinicians to monitor and understand the nature of their countertransference reactions, whatever is triggering them, throughout the treatment. It is especially important to do so, however, when there is a disruption in the transference that threatens the treatment. Sometimes the therapist's own supervision or treatment may be used to gain such understanding. The focus of this chapter is to illustrate the process by which clinicians attempt to understand and address their countertransference reactions with their patients.
