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This panel left little doubt that there are contrasting aims and methods of transference interpretation among North American, European and South American psychoanalysts today. Cecilio Paniagua, speaking from the floor during the discussion period, claimed support for his 1995 position that contemporary psychoanalysis is characterised not only by diverse theories but also by diverse methodologies. He then questioned Wallerstein's (1988, 1990) view that methodologies, including common ways of analysing transference and resistance, if not theories, constituted our common ground. The varied approaches to psychoanalytic methodology of transference interpretation espoused in this panel do seem to support a position in which the common ground is a growing acceptance among analysts from disparate parts of the world that pluralism and diversity are the order of the day. What was most apparent to me was that any one of a variety of theories and methodologies may be applied to some patients more than others at any given moment, and that one methodology may be more valuable than another for a given patient.
Each contributor to this panel has addressed the issue of interpreting the here-and-now transference resistance observable in the analyst's consulting room at one or another point along a surface-to-depth continuum, from observable blocks in the flow of free associations to underlying, often unconscious dynamics presumably motivating that resistance. The controversy that emerged boiled down to choosing what to make explicit in the style and content of interpretation along three hypothetical points: (1) one analyses primarily the resistance, trusting that the patient will find the way, independently, towards understanding the symbolic meanings of underlying conflict; (2) one analyses primarily the contents of the underlying dynamic conflicts that are being resisted; (3) one analyses giving more or less equal weight to both the resistances and the underlying dynamic conflicts.