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PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT IS CARRIED OUT in the context of the transference regression. Whatever extensions or modifications may occur in the theoretical edifice, the method remains essentially the same. What we interpret may vary, but our main technical approach is the interpretation of the transference; this may be considered an invariant. What we interpret, however, is not invariant. Our interpretations will be determined by how we understand the patient's associations and reactions as they lie on our couches, and this has changed in the last two decades. This is where early object relationships and psychic development enter the picture.
Freud (1912) stressed how the analyst, as a clinician, has to suspend judgments, abandon preconceived formulations and follow the patient's associations wherever they may lead. Some analysts who have been analyzed by him indicate that Freud did not practice what he preached. Instead, he tried to make everything fit into the Oedipal mold. Holt (1973) demonstrated Freud's propensity to generalize from very small bits of data. His devotion to the death instinct and his insistence on the universality of the Oedipus complex are two noteworthy examples that have had a tremendous influence on the practice of psychoanalysis. For example, the death instinct, as it has been absorbed in the Kleinian model, has become the foundation for the interpretations of a large group of analysts, particularly those living south of the border, extending from Mexico to Argentina. In the United States, the interpretation and the resolution of the Oedipus complex has been considered the sine qua non of psychoanalytic treatment. In many instances these two viewpoints have become procrustean beds in which therapists have forcefully placed their patients. The patient's psychopathology has been