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The author examines the narcissistic and relational aspects of the preconscious functioning of the analytic couple in order to bring out the drive-related, developmental and structural elements of the infantile in their relationship. She considers that any disruption of the specific tone of an analysis indicates a change in the level of drive excitation, which is experienced unconsciously in the transference and countertransference as the loss of a significant internal object and gives rise to a representational deficiency. Where this is due to the impact of the infantile-in-the-patient on his own preconscious, the analyst suffers a blind spot. As long as he can desist from using ‘blocking representations’, the effect will be to repress the unrepresented wish and at the same time to create a framing and containing preform beneficial to the treatment. In the author’s view, the analyst deals with his blind spot by a ‘work of the negative’ à la André Green, through denial of his fantasy of seduction by the infantile omnipotence of the analysand. This model can also be used to investigate the termination criteria of the analyst’s own analysis and the economic situation of repression in the psychoanalyst’s work.