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Is it still useful to understand psychoanalytical theory solely as «a broadened expression of countertransference»? Would it not be more appropriate to consider it, first and foremost, an expression of transference onto the object? In defining psychoanalysis as a particularly complex «cognitive action», which is continually in fieri and exposed to the presence of the object, Francesco Corrao (1992) has highlighted the interactive and bipersonal dimension inherent in the analytical field, reminding us that «the cognitive experience, in itself, establishes a link». This link, he writes, «can be vitalizing and […] promote discovery, when it results from the positive transformation of a painful feeling which was hindering or limiting the subject. On the other hand, however, it can be devitalizing, or even fatal, if the possession of knowledge is used to elude or avoid a painful experience, rather than transform it» (14-15).
The «formula» which Conrotto (2011, 190) adopts to define his theory appears both «overused» and, especially, reductive, because it is unable, by itself, to account for the complexities of psychoanalytic investigation, and the «field» functions this activates. It is more fruitful, instead, to remember that psychoanalytical theory is a function of the very same field which it contributes to activating, through the irresolvable tension between exploratory/creative drives and defensive needs. Taking the countertransference area as prevailing epistemic summit inevitably leads to a weakening of the cognitive hold on the object, with the subject not so much exposed as colonised by it. This also leads to a weakening of the specific «subject-object dialectic» which is uniquely configured in psychoanalytic investigation, as the subject and object of the investigation are continually ectopic.
When Freud suggested to his colleagues the «collection of short contributions» to share the «experiences and examples from analytic practice», what he had in mind, as expla