Editorial

It could be claimed that, as the clinical practice of psychoanalysis has developed during this century, there are three concepts that have exercised some of the best minds and altered the way in which psychoanalysis is thought about and practised - the concepts of projective identification, narcissism and the countertransference. It could also be said that though these three concepts are of quite central concern today, they are embedded in competing models of the mind. Put very simply, these models could be described as the ‘intrapsychic’ versus the ‘interpsychic’. John Gedo (1973, p. 10) suggested that ‘Models of the mind are summarizing conventions which represent the clinical theory of psychoanalysis’. This notion of models of the mind being ‘summarizing conventions’ is a useful idea to bear in mind as we see both the ‘interpsychic’ and ‘intrapsychic’ being used in this issue. The concept of projective identification is essentially an intrapsychic phenomenon and Duncan Cartwright argues for two components to it: the affective component and the self/object component, which need to be distinguished if effective therapy is to take place. Robert Royston approaches the problem of narcissism through the lens of the interpsychic and examines the consequences of the failure of the object to reflect positive and self-affirming experiences in the infant. This can leave the infant with an internalized ‘anti-self object’ composed of its own ungratified narcissistic needs as well as the narcissistic needs of the caretakers. The ‘anti-self object’ becomes a most destructive carapace against change. Patricia Marsden and Gillian Russell locate their work with bulimic patients in the intense intrapsychic countertransference that such patients invoke in their therapist. They distinguish three countertransference feelings that this particular pathology can arouse in the therapist: a feeling of failure, a feeling that they have become cold and hateful, and finally a feeling that the