23

This article discusses the specificity of countertransference reactions in a war context. The clinical vignette is taken from a research study that explores the mechanisms of the transmission of trauma in the countertransference with therapists who work with traumatised patients. Semi-structured interviews have been analysed according to an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the findings in order to say as close as possible to the subjective experience of the participants in the phenomenon studied. The results of our study highlight invasive countertransference reactions: the therapist’s body as a transitory locus for registering inexpressible traumatic transmissions; intense emotional experience marked by moments in which the therapist questions his/her identity, feelings of shame and guilt as well as aggression that is turned into a fear of traumatising the patient; and a sense of the peer community opting out in the humanitarian context.