Importance of Projective Identification Influence on Countertransference in a Traumatized Group

Abstract

In this paper I recount the difficulties of working with the group whose members were traumatized during the bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999. The difficulties were most present in transference-countertransference relations. The focus will be the influence of the projective identification mechanism on counter-transference, and how this mechanism is used in order to express the feelings that cannot otherwise be expressed, except for the therapist to experience them. The communications aspects of Projective Identification (PI) were evident when the group members tended to provoke certain feelings and thoughts within the therapist, trying to involve him in some kind of an acting-out and so avoid anxiety related to their feelings. Therefore it was of great importance that the therapist should observe his countertransference feelings as the way for the feelings of the group members to be registered, since they cannot be registered in any other way.