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THIS PAPER IS ONE OF A SERIES of studies, essentially personal, which have grown out of and are therefore an extension of the investigation of the nature of the psychoanalyic process which I reported in my book (1967). In that work I left rather empty the description of the interpretive function of the analyst as one of his modes of participation in the therapeutic relationship, since it was not central to the main theme. This centered on the process and its evolution seen as arising essentially in the unconscious of the patient. But it is probably true that any analysis which really taps the passions of the patient does the same for the analyst and promotes a development which can further his own self-analysis. Insofar as this is true, the main industrial hazard of this work lies in the danger of the transference-countertransference process taking a turn in the direction of perversion and thus becoming anti-therapeutic for both members of the undertaking.
The analyst's great safeguard against this lies in the method and its basic technique, any breach of which should serve as a warning bell that the countertransference requires special scrutiny. This