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This brief introduction gives an historical outline of the development of the concept of transference in the different psychoanalytic traditions. It goes back to the various meanings of the German term "Übertragung" – transference, transcription, transmission, transposition and assignment – and how they were accentuated by the different psychoanalytic schools. The paper depicts the transition from a mainly intrapsychic understanding of transference as repetition to a more bipersonal and intersubjective approach exploring the different meanings of "intersubjectivity" and the forces that operate within the analytic field. Major developments arose from a new understanding of the role of the analyst's countertransference and the detection of transference mechanisms in narcissistic, borderline and psychotic states. The exploration of different forms of splitting and projective and introjective identification deepened the understanding of the analytic communication and led to concepts like "acting in", role-responsiveness, "actualization" and "enactment". As the author tries to show, all these approaches can find a legitimization in Freud's original writings, but the main differences concern technical issues, i.e. the interpretation of transference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations of summary This manuscript, dated 1941, is a class on technique taught by James Strachey to first-year candidates at the British Psychoanalytical Society ( BPS), located in the Archives of BPS. As the last of three written manuscripts on transference interpretation, it offers an opportunity to trace the development and subtle shift in Strachey's thinking following his 1934 paper (Strachey, 1934, 1937). The lecture is striking in its precise language, and in the complexity of the issues discussed. Through the use of an optical metaphor, the magic lantern, Strachey illustrates transference, what is therapeutic about a transference interpretation and describes projective identification and some aspects of counter-transference without naming them as such. Strachey makes a persuasive case for careful attention being paid to the analytic situation, the 'artificially simplified relationship between analyst and patient' with systematic comparison to psychotherapeutic techniques of support and reassurance, which he argues lead to only temporary and limited results. The author argues that Strachey continues to be influenced by Klein's developmental, technical, and object relational theories as was already evident in his 1934 paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In psychoanalysis, the question of child's play owes its fame to child psychoanalysts. Before the emergence of child psychoanalysis, however, Sigmund Freud had evoked the question of child's play in his works many times. Surprisingly, his views on play remain generally underestimated - with the notable exception of the famous "fort-da" game that, by irresistibly attracting innumerable comments to itself, has come to overshadow, in the author's view, the whole Freudian conception of play. This paper therefore aims at archeologically re-examining this notion in the Freudian corpus. It intends to show that, far from being limited to an object of study as "interpreted," play is also called upon for what it offers heuristically as "interpreting," especially when Freud is faced with metapsychological obstacles. Two main strands of this theoretical conception of play are identified (a "deficit" and a "surplus" conception). The paper then highlights how the Freudian conception of play is intimately linked to his melancholy theory of the psyche and of culture. Finally, the paper changes tack in order to briefly suggest that this reconsideration of play might have psychoanalytic implications on two issues, namely the status of child's play in analysis and the more general question of interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What psychoanalysts consider psychoanalytic interpretation, in what setting it emerges and specifically why, when and how transference should be interpreted, have become increasingly unclear and controversial. In this paper I set out, elaborate, illustrate and argue the value for post-session reflection, certainly within the object relations traditions, of adopting a parsimonious model of practice. The model rests on the foundations of a specific understanding of free association, evenly suspended attention, resistance and transference and separating two epistemologically distinct intentions in transference interpretation. One, transference construction, aims to make a patient aware of the unconscious ways a patient is behaving in sessions (and then outside them) and how and why that is happening. A second, transference designation, focuses on the more limited aim of making patients aware of how they unconsciously experience the psychoanalyst at specific moments of resistance in sessions. Both types of interpretation may help but, I argue, it is the latter that must form the bedrock for fundamental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the fact that Freud's self-analysis was at the centre of so many of his discoveries, self-analysis remains a complex, controversial and elusive exercise. While self-analysis is often seen as emerging at the end of an analysis and then used as a criteria in assessing the suitability for termination, I try to attend to the patient's resistance to self-analysis throughout an analysis. I take the view that the development of the patient's capacity for self-analysis within the analytic session contributes to the patient's growth and their creative and independent thinking during the analysis, which prepares him or her for a fuller life after the formal analysis ends. The model I will present is based on an over lapping of the patient's and the analyst's self-analysis, with recognition and use of the analyst's counter-transference. My focus is on the analyst's self-analysis that is in response to a particular crisis of not knowing, which results in feeling intellectually and emotionally stuck. This paper is not a case study, but a brief look at the process I went through to arrive at a particular interpretation with a particular patient during a particular session. I will concentrate on resistances in which both patient and analyst initially rely upon what is consciously known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysts may incorporate many of Melanie Klein's important contributions (e.g., on preoedipal dynamics, envy, and projective identification) without transforming their basic analytic approach. In this paper I argue that adopting the Kleinian notion of unconscious phantasy is transformative. While it is grounded in Freud's thinking and draws out something essential to his work, this notion of phantasy introduces a radical change that defines Kleinian thinking and practice and significantly impacts the analyst's basic clinical approach. This impact and its technical implications in the analytic situation are illustrated and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations of summary Ignacio Matte Blanco (1908-1995) left very few specific indications about the applications of his theoretical notions to his interpretative style. The author shows how he uses Matte Blanco to formulate some of his own interpretations. The first part of the paper uses clinical vignettes to illustrate some of Matte-Blanco's concepts. Their theoretical vocabulary is thus made explicit. Then two psychoanalytic sessions are discussed at greater length, together with one from a therapy, so that the use of Matte-Blanco's notions can be seen clearly, allowing for a fresh perspective on areas of psychoanalytic theory, particularly dreams, psychopathology viewed according to the proportions of asymmetrical and symmetrical functioning in the patient's bi-logical mental system, the multidimensionality of the unconscious, the structural unconscious, the emotion-thought relationship, projective identification, resistance, and negative therapeutic reaction. The practical consequences of all this are elaborated, particularly the ensuing possibility of 'thinking with the patient' in the session. This enables the patient to introject a form of mental functioning in which the asymmetrical mode is not invaded by the symmetric mode (a parallel can be seen here with the Bionian concept of dialogue between the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the mind). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]