Virtually all counseling theories have viewed counselor empathic ability as an important condition for counseling, while the concept of countertransference, any therapist feelings or attitudes toward the client, has had a much shakier history. A two-part counseling analogue was designed to examine the relationship of male counselor trainees' (N=22) empathic ability to measures of countertransference behavior and countertransference feelings. Results revealed that empathy was negatively related to countertransference behavior with seductive female clients, but not with hostile or neutral clients. Counselor empathic ability was positively related to counselor reports of openness to countertransference feelings. The findings suggest, however, that there is a limit as to how often countertransference feelings may be experienced in a given counseling session without spilling over into countertransference behavior. (Author/JAC)