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Throughout the years specific aspects of psychoanalytic technique have evolved. In the first part of this century reconstruction was felt to be especially important. More recently and particularly among Kleinian analysts historic reconstruction per se has been viewed as less noteworthy than repetition in the transference. Only the past as manifested in the transference has been perceived as having much emotional or indeed any real meaning in the analysis.
The assumption is made that repetitions develop in the transference. The effects of early childhood can be modified if such repetitions are worked with in the therapy. Each specific early memory then does not have to be made conscious. How often these repetitions occur has not been taken up in the literature. For example, does material repeat itself every ten years or every few seconds during a session? How can family myths that repeat themselves every generation be dealt with? Do short-term repetitions in a session form a part of longer patterns or are these independent cycles?
Such questions need to at least be considered when issues of transference interpretations versus reconstructions are thought about and discussed. The author previously (Crisp, 1987a) drew attention to the problem as an issue that should be taken up in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to more specifically delineate the questions involved and to speculate about how technique can affect these patterns.
Family therapists have taken up the repetition question in a somewhat different manner than psychoanalysts. They have more directly addressed specific time-lags in repetition. Thus material will be borrowed from the family therapy literature in order to better understand repetitions in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. However, so that time-lags can be more easily grasped in the psychoanalytic context, an early historical discussion of repetition versus reconstruction will be presented. The reasons for repetition are, however, by and