Interaction And Transference

Dear Sir

Ponsi (IJPA, 1997, 78: 243-263) presents a clinical vignette in which she characterizes her first interpretation as a here and now transference interpretation that focuses on interaction, whereas the second interpretation has more to do with transference than interaction. Gill, she states, fails to recognize such a difference, and reduces all transference to interaction. This, she believes, ‘impoverishes rather than enriches the capacity for psychoanalytic investigation’ (p. 259). I disagree, and will try to demonstrate from her vignette that she does not understand Gill’s concept of interaction. I write from the vantage point of having had the privilege of being supervised by Gill during the last years of his life. Despite the lucidity of his writing it is difficult for the reader to know what he would do in a particular clinical situation.

Here is a summary of her vignette. The session began with a ten- to fifteen-minute silence and then the patient talked about roaming around with her thoughts, relaxing. She mentioned she had forgotten to bring the analyst’s ‘shekels’, and then talked in a bored tone about a dinner party to which she had to go. She repeated that she didn’t understand how she forgot to bring the cash. The analyst interpreted: ‘You forgot it “again” and you are worried and bothered by this repetition: you are afraid there is something serious to be confronted, something that may put the relationship with me severely to the test. Perhaps you felt at some point that whenever you forgot like this, it might also be a sign of something good: relaxation, letting yourself go in fantasies (as you did at the beginning of the session), not having to keep things under control, trusting that you will be accepted—at least here with me—for what you are, without having to worry about behaving properly—as you feel you have to do with the people at your dinner. Having to remember the cash [soldi] —the “shekels” … is like having to give up something good: som