Discussion of Molly Ludlam's “Lost — and Found — in Translation”1

Molly Ludlam starts right off, lucidly — and accurately — presenting Fairbairn as the visionary father of object relations therapy whose seminal contribution to psychoanalytic theory has been largely disregarded, particularly in Kleinian circles. Fairbairn was born and lived in Scotland, 400 miles away from the intensely generative and regressive forces of the psychoanalytic community of mid-20^th century London. Surmising that he also may have further distanced himself by presenting his original thinking in highly technical — sometimes impenetrable — abstract language, Ludlam articulately provides us with a clear translation of Fairbairn's ideas and then further brings his work to life with her discussion of the usefulness of his ideas in contemporary couple psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Inspired by Ludlam's paper, for the past few months I immersed myself in Fairbairn's ideas. My experience of this immersion was surprising to me. Unlike many other psychoanalytic writers, his work did not beckon me in. As Ludlam noted, his writing seems cold, distant, and saturated. But the more I got past the writing and lived with his ideas while I worked, the more these ideas came to life in the very human struggles of the couples I was seeing. I would like to describe what happens when I bring Fairbairn into the consulting room, and where it takes my thinking on working with couples.

As psychoanalysts, we welcome our patients’ intense — sometimes seemingly one-dimensional and limited — views of us, and call this “the transference.” We believe this transference powerfully brings to life the emotional truth of their experience. To attempt to talk patients out of this experience, to explain to them why their views of us are distorted, only partially true, or too one-sided, would be strange and counter-productive.