In this issue Mark Pearson offers a review of the transference literature, but argues that some patients find transference interpretation threatening or intrusive. He believes that transformation of core relationship problems can be wrought equally as much by 'staying within the patient's metaphor', advocating the narrative or storytelling approach that seems to be being incorporated into psychoanalytic theory more and more lately, In a critique of the concept of transference, Nick Handley discusses how it can be used inappropriately to protect the analyst, to deny the real aspects of the therapeutic relationship or to create iatrogenic problems. He resituates the theory of transference within the existential-phenomenological encounter, suggesting that this gives it a firmer footing in clinical reality.
The theme of transference wends its way, inevitably, through the other papers in this issue. Gertrud Mander offers an exploration of psychodynamic once-weekly work and relates her experiences in which containment and analysis in the transference of high levels of primitive emotion are possible. Robert Royston's article on intellectual dysfunction tracks its roots to the effects of a childhood 'autocratic object' that prevents taking in and metabolizing new material, discernible in the transference. What are the implications for the transference when touch plays a role in the therapy, as in the many body-orientated therapies presently in fashion? Viqui Rosenberg writes of moving with a patient from a bioenergetics framework into a psychoanalytic one, with the suggestion that the change from the sphere of body boundaries and tensions into a distanced verbal space fostered oedipal-level work and symbol formation.
With the need for effective brief therapies in the National Health Service comes the question of how much working through in the transference is necessary. In a critique of a long Kleinian analysis, Anthony Ryle claims that cognitive-analytic therapy, addressing 'self states' and 'reciprocal roles', offers a different perspective on borderline pathology that could accelerate the working through. In a response to Ryle's paper, Meira Likierman suggests that considerations of the developmental level of the patient in terms of ego strength, primitive anxiety and symbolic functioning would support the Kleinian method. Likierman points out that extended time in analysis to take up defensive positions might well be the growth-inducing factor when defences have been faulty. It seems to me that this issue hinges, at least partly, around whether one believes the natural synthetic function of the mind to be sufficient to the integrative process or whether the therapist needs to work actively in linking dissociated self states in the patient. So this thought-provoking debate continues.
A conference on 'Psychoanalysis and Feminism: 20 Years On' took place in London in May 1994, sponsored by the Freud Museum. We publish here a group of the conference papers: brief panel discussions by Juliet Mitchell, Joanna Ryan, Margot Waddell and Joan Raphael-Leff, and the paper by Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum. They look in various ways at the influences of the feminist movement on psychoanalysis since the publication of Juliet Mitchell's influential book in 1974, and at the situation of feminism today as it intersects with psychoanalysis.
Professional and training issues with an eye to high standards often preoccupy us. In the current debate about whether NVQs are appropriate for psychotherapy, Rosemary Randall argues that the Draft Standards proposed to the Lead Body by the counselling profession would be, if adopted, alien in philosophy and ultimately damaging to psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Views on the teaching of psychotherapy are offered by Kirsty Hall and Juliet Miller, who reflect on how theory is taught and used in the experiences of students.
Finally, this issue contains more responses to previously published articles. Meg Harris Williams comments on the Rustins' article on Julius Caesar, discussing the textual analysis of the play. So much of the best literature confirms the universal truth of psychoanalytic ideas, so that it seems it is not a matter of applying a psychoanalytic literary criticism from above, as it were, but of observing how often literature illustrates our theories, a sort of groundswell from underneath. We also have further responses to the debate around the article by Robert Langs and Anthony Badalamenti that promoted a formal scientific model for psychoanalysis; and responses to David Malan's comments on Ian Craib's paper on mourning in the Correspondence section. We will continue to welcome open debate on clinical and theoretical issues, but not polemic or political point-scoring. A quote from the American philosopher Edward Ballard (1986), brought to my attention by Neville Singh, echoes my position (substitute 'psychotherapist' for 'philosopher'): 'the primary obligation of the philosopher is to respect his subject-matter. It is not to take sides in contemporary controversy and defeat his opponent, nor to construct an elenchus-proof system within which he may take refuge. Rather he expresses respect for his subject-matter and enters effectively into the philosophic agon by keeping open the ways of interpretation and philosophic conversation and by this means continually exploring and illuminating the sources of conflict and resolution, of blindness and insight.'
References
Ballard, E. (1986) Quoted in London Review of Books, 18 June.
Freud, S. (1914) Remembering, repeating and working through (Further recommendations on the technique of psycho-analysis 11). In Standard Edition, Vol. 12.
©Jean Arundale. Mounted by Chris Evans (Email:C.Evans@sghms.ac.uk) on 26.x.95. Last updated 23.iv.97