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DR. FEINER'S ZESTFUL retrieval of Freud's "yeastiness" underlines with precision Freud's concern with the toxic effects of analysis on the analyst. Freud's advice to submit to analysis periodically suggests that analysts could contain and accumulate the daily toxic material that emanates from patients' projections for periods of five years or so. More recent technical developments suggest, however, that on-going self-analysis of the countertransference makes it possible for the analyst to cleanse himself as he becomes contaminated by these projections. The old joke about the weary, battleworn young analyst who encounters the older, but fresh and energetic analyst at the end of a long working day and asks him for his secret, and gets the classical reply "But who listens?" should be changed. The older, more experienced analyst might respond: "I also listen to myself."
Dr. Feiner's analysis of the first clinical vignette goes to the core of a complex issue. I agree that the patient "correctly" dismissed an analyst that acted out his counter-transference. This is precisely the point of the illustration: it is an example of how—thru the mechanisms of projective and introjective identification—we engage