Chapter 15. Elements of Psycho-Analysis

In this chapter I reconsider transference. The elements of the transference are to be found in that aspect of the patient's behaviour that betrays his awareness of the presence of an object that is not himself. No aspect of his behaviour can be disregarded; its relevance to the central fact must be assessed. His greeting, or neglect of it, references to couch, or furniture, or weather, all must be seen in that aspect of them that relates to the presence of an object not himself; the evidence must be regarded afresh each session and nothing taken for granted, for the order in which aspects of the patient's mind present themselves for observation are not decided by the length of time for which the analysis has endured. For example, the patient may regard the analyst as a person to be treated as if he were a thing; or as a thing towards which his attitude is animistic. If ψ(ξ) represents the analyst's state of mind vis-à-vis the analysand it is the unsaturated element (ξ) that is the important one in every session.

The peculiarity of a psychoanalytic session, that aspect of it which establishes that it is a psychoanalysis and could be nothing else, lies in the use by the analyst of all material to illuminate a K relationship. The transference interpretation is peculiar in that it refers to all material without discrimination, but is highly selective in appraising its significance. The patient communicates information that has significance by virtue of criteria of his own: the analyst is restricted to interpretations that are an expression of a K relationship with the patient. They must not be expressions of L or H.

Ordinarily an analyst would not expect to go through a series of conscious speculations on the nature of simple statements. But if he wishes to do some ‘homework’, that is to say extra-analytic

meditation, on a session, either to train and amplify his capacity for intuitive deduction, or because he has some doubts about the accuracy of the work he has been d