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In his book the Italian psychoanalyst Dr Speziale-Bagliacca sets out to investigate some of the factors which may hamper the development and growth of psychoanalytic thought. He discusses some of Freud's writings and correspondence, from the point of view of the influence he had on his followers' theories and on the establishment of psychoanalytic institutions; he also explores, and by implication contrasts, Lacan's theoretical framework and his relation towards his own disciples.
What is being questioned seems to be the character of psychoanalytic knowledge, and the way this can be warped or fostered in the practice of psychoanalysis. In this respect the internal figures present in the psychoanalyst's inner world are of course crucial, and Freud, as the founder father of psychoanalysis, is a figure all psychoanalysts carry within, an all powerful ideal which some attack endlessly, and some revere blindly. And yet, Speziale-Bagliacca suggests, if one is to be able to express freely his or her creativity, one has to come to terms with such idealization, to which Freud himself contributed.
According to the author, a turning point in psychoanalysis was represented by Melanie Klein, who put the figure of the mother in the centre of the individual's inner world, shifting the emphasis from a phallocentric theory of development to an earlier and more complex relationship and opening the way to the concept of containment which was later developed by Bion. If I understand Speziale-Bagliacca's thought, implicit in the idea of containment is a suggestion of reciprocity, which he describes, in the psychoanalytic setting, as the circularity of transference: what he seems to mean by this term is the influence that the analyst's interpretations have on the patient, while the patient by 'fitting in' with the analyst's framework, confirms the theories underlying the interpretations.
It follows that the more rigid the analyst's approach is, the narrower are the limits in which the