Some Comments on Baranger's Paper Using Jacobs's Clinical Example

This excellent article by Madeleine Baranger is both consistent and didactic. She provides the reader with an abstraction of the steps which take place in the analyst's mind between what he or she hears and the interpretation. She thus manages to come near the clinical work of each one us. She theorises on the precise nature of the analyst's work, both when in silence and when interpreting. To give more life to Baranger's theoretical considerations, I have chosen to let Jacobs's splendid clinical material explain and illustrate the points that I have chosen.

The first significant aspect of Jacobs's article is that, as he recounts the session, he gives us some indications as to who this patient has been during analysis. To do this he makes reference to his own feelings and sensations even before the patient has entered his consulting room. These points are valuable because they throw a very interesting light on our first question: what the analyst listens to.

In a 1961 article, W. & M. Baranger propose that the analyst's listening focuses on a structure they call the intersubjective field. They present this concept as a solution to an epistemological problem regarding the nature of the unconscious, a question which I will not take up here.

What is the intersubjective field? It is a structure that goes beyond the intersubjective analyst–patient relationship and even beyond the transference–countertransference interaction. It is what produces both; it produces the analytic dialogue itself. This structure represents a new Gestalt. It is the focus of the work of interpretation (1961).

The intersubjective field, therefore, represents more than the sum of the two parts involved, just as a melody is much more than the sum of the notes that make it up. 'It is not simply a question of taking the analyst's countertransferential experiences into account, but of recognising that both this countertransference and the patient's transferential ma