CLINICAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DIMENSIONS OF HATE

Bridging concepts of aggression, affect, and attitude, hate emerges du ring the process of separation-individuation concurrent with ego devel opment and persisting intrapsychic conflict and fantasy. Rage precedes hate developmentally, though later the two are amalgamated both devel opmentally and clinically. Hate is the negative pole of ambivalence an d is a component of all self- and object representations and object re lationships. When excessive and unmodulated, hate interferes with obje ct relations and personality development. Paradoxically, hate may also subserve adaptation and personality organization. Transference hate i s often a greater problem for the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist tha n is transference love. Transference hate threatens the analyst's narc issism and neutrality and tests the analyst's tolerance and patience. The patient's intense hate is often experienced as a direct assault on the analytic relationship and the analytic process. Countertransferen ce hate and the need to defend against it are of great clinical import ance. Because it runs counter to analytic ideals and values, the analy st's hatred of the patient may be denied, minimized, rationalized, ena cted, or vicariously gratified and may occasion great resistance to an alytic self-scrutiny. Countertransference hate is often an unrecognize d determinant in cases of analytic and therapeutic impasse. A classic contribution by D.W. Winnicott to the recognition and elucidation of c ountertransference hate is reevaluated.