“There and Then” in the “Here and Now”: Commentary on Kernberg

Elsewhere I have said that upon being “asked to identify the five most influential theorists in our field since Freud, most well-informed psychoanalysts would come up with the names of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Wilfred Bion, André Green, and Otto Kernberg. Occupying a place of great distinction, Kernberg is the pre-eminent psychoanalytic theoretician of our times” (Akhtar 2012, p. 995). In contributions spanning well over fifty years, he has painstakingly and consistently sought to integrate diverse conceptual strands in psychoanalysis, forge links between descriptive psychiatry and metapsychology, underscore the pitfalls of customary psychoanalytic education, shed light on problems of love, hate, and mourning, and delineate the intricate ways in which psychoanalytic technique can be modified and adapted for the treatment of patients with severe psychopathology. Kernberg's depth of knowledge, his breadth of concern, and a literary style that combines the precision of a surgeon and the parsimony of a banker makes it hard to “discuss” a piece of his writing, let alone “critically evaluate” it. Add to this the personal element of my great debt, both conceptual and professional, to him for his innumerable acts of kindness toward me and you will get some sense of the daunting nature of my task here. But forge ahead I must and say a few things about this most recent contribution of his.

Kernberg's paper is unabashedly therapeutic in its aim and seeks to highlight the transference developments characteristic of individuals with