Interpréter le transfert [Interpreting the transference] Edited by Félicie Nayrou and Georges Pragier Paris:  Presses Universitaires de France. 2004.  176 pp.

The question of interpreting the transference is giving rise to new debates that may be interesting to consider—moving beyond the classical distinction between ‘interpreting the transference’ and ‘interpreting in the transference’—concerning

concepts, currently accepted in France, of the coexistence of the transference and the countertransference, contributions from contemporary psychoanalysis and its various currents and, finally, modifications in accordance with current clinical practice. This collaborative reflection by analysts from the Paris Psychoanalytical Society, taking account of these various parameters, reviews the situation in this volume dedicated to this theoretical and clinical subject that is regularly explored in psychoanalysis.

The first part of the book presents a theoretical contribution formulated by four authors, each bringing their own original viewpoint to bear on this subject.

Jean-Luc Donnet (‘Interpretation of the transference’) takes his starting-point from the setting, which gives rise—as he puts it—to ‘the analytic nature of the situation’, in which, in the co-construction of the session, transference interpretation is interwoven with the interpretation of the material presented in the session. This allows the transference to be redeployed in new forms that can be interpreted in the deferred action.

In the course of an interview with Marie-Françoise Laval-Hygonenq (‘For a theoretical coherence of the interpretation’), Michel de M'Uzan also contrasts transference interpretation with interpretation of content, but in a different way from the previous author. With the importance that he characteristically accords to the status of the interpretation, de M'Uzan emphasizes the economic conditions that are at work in the patient when the interpretation occurs, as well as the status of the analyst's thought at that moment, with its consequences on the effects that are specific to the way in which it is formulated.