This paper addresses a very familiar subject, with a particular focus on the psychotherapist's contribution to the transference-countertransference unconscious dynamic. It summarizes some of the many discussions on countertransference drawing from the vast literature on the subject. A case study is also given to illustrate the concept in clinical practice. The paper returns to the literature to trace the key elements that characterize it, and highlights the reiteration of different formulations of the same basic ideas. It then moves on to wonder about the reasons for this abundance of literature, proposing a parallel between the unravelling of countertransference in psychotherapy and the creative act, both based on the experience of personal discovery, where the production of an artefact does not require new subject matter but a fresh and personal reinterpretation.Countertransference occupies a paradoxical position in the theoretical edifice of psychoanalysis because, even though it is currently recognized as one of the pillars on which clinical practice rests, any attempt to conduct an objective enquiry into it has also to make room for certain subjective terms of reference -such as intuition, revelation and disclosure. As a phenomenon, countertransference may sustain us in our decision to choose to become psychotherapists, as it ensures that, in order to fulfil our responsibility to our patients, we will also continue to analyse ourselves for the rest of our working lives. This prospect, which most human beings would not relish, some of us would appear to embrace -volunteering to keep our psyche under regular scrutiny to better understand that of our patients. Thus we create the conditions under which we remain forever in analysis, perhaps wishing to privilege inner world over outside reality. Unconsciously, we may wish to disown and project our own feelings of vulnerability or illness and -motivated by the hope to repair our damaged internal objects -we become instrumental to somebody else's therapeutic process. How else could we explain our willingness to be in turns disturbed, distracted, moved and alarmed, all in the course of a day's work, taking again and again an uncertain journey which is not supposed to be really our own?

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This paper explores the conflicting as well as complementary relation between interpretation and touch in psychotherapy. It attempts to make sense of a clinical experience in which the change of orientation and framework undergone by the therapist in the course of a patient's treatment provided an opportunity for the therapeutic relationship to move from a body-therapy approach to a psychoanalytic one. It suggests that this particular experience may offer opportunities for discussing some problems encountered in the field of clinical practice.

CS For the purpose of this presentation -and in keeping with the spirit of this conference -we will adopt the format of a scripted dialogue, where each of us will speak from a particular perspective.Mine is as a practitioner of martial arts. As a young man I studied Judo, Karate, Tae Kwon Do and Aikido, and for many years now I have been learning Kendo, or Japanese fencing. Kendo developed from sword fighting, which you may have seen portrayed in samurai films, such as those by Kurosawa (Seven Samurai). However, the purpose of Kendo is not to kill or maim your opponent but to pursue spiritual development and, therefore, since the eighteenth century practitioners have used bamboo swords and protective armour in order to avoid injury.VR What we are bringing here today is an attempt to open up a dialogue, which has been going on in private for some time. I am a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and Carlos and I have often considered that there is something in the practice of certain aspects of the martial arts which resonates with the analytic experience -and we would like to think about this. At the same time, we do not wish to force a parallel by way of oversimplifying two very complex and distinctive disciplines.Our interest is to understand the massive appeal of martial arts, openly expressed by the proliferation of schools in the most unlikely places: a small Greek island, a remote village in Spain, a busy corner in a provincial South American town and, of course, countless academies in all large cities all over the world. Furthermore, how the idea of martial arts itself has been popularized by the mass media and is consumed by popular culture.It is to be noticed that both martial arts and psychoanalysis are regarded in British culture with some suspicion. Is the martial arts student a closet paranoid bully? Does one have to be mad to be in analysis?