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Thirty-five years ago John Klauber (1976), in a too-little-read paper, “The Identity of the Psychoanalyst,” writes about the difficulties, strains, and losses inherent in the analyst's work. “I think the sense of identity of the psychoanalyst,” says Klauber, “depends essentially on one thing: an experience of conversion. By this I do not mean an intellectual conversion, but a change of mind and heart, a metanoia.… The identity of the psychoanalyst depends on the analytic fire in his belly” (p. 177). Klauber's humane, plainspoken formulation serves well to introduce Transference and Countertransference: A Unifying Focus of Psychoanalysis—a collection of essays that reflect questions of passion and commitment, the analytic fire in the belly.
The editors, Jean Arundale and Debbie Bandler Bellman, have methodically constructed this volume of nine chapters by different authors, sensibly arranged, on the theme of transference and countertransference. The whole is preceded by a “Prelude” and an introduction that begins, “The aims of this book are twofold. The first is to contribute to the psychoanalytic literature on transference and countertransference. The second is to ‘introduce’ the British Psychoanalytic Association” (p. xiii). The order of these two aims, placing the intellectual focus ahead of the institutional, hints at an underlying story, as do the framing quotation marks qualifying (somewhat darkly) “introduce.”
But even before the introduction, similar clues emerge: in the brief acknowledgments preceding the introduction and prelude, the reader confronts a somewhat confusing trio of acronyms: BPA, BAP, IPA (later, BPAS is added). The mild overwhelm induced by so many shorthand namings (a confusion admittedly greater for an American reader unfamiliar with the British organizations) suggests a story to unfold. And so it does, as the introduction continues with some detailed historical background:
This book is the first to publish a group of papers written by members