Beyond Transference, Countertransference, the Silences and the Opinion1

The author examines several works of an intersubjectivist trend, as well as writings by Hanly, Cavell and Bion, defending many of the named psychoanalysts'viewpoints. These viewpoints are expressed in the search and the struggle for truth, recognizing, like Popper, that truth exists but that we cannot know with certainty whether and when we touch upon it, only that this endless effort merits a lifetime's work because it is the attempt at an encounter with ourselves—the true encounter. The author explains the criticisms by Green of Jacobs, and defends the maintenance of ‘a certain possible neutrality’ (Eizirik). He poses some questions with regard to Ogden's ‘third subject’, considering it, among other aspects, from the supervisory point of view, which may demonstrate the existence of ‘a certain possible objectivity’ of the emotional conflict. He develops some criticisms concerning silence as an interpretative action by Ogden, and summarizes two case histories. Both were unconsciously attempting to manipulate the analyst intensely—one of them to get the analyst to intervene in his love life, and the other to interrupt acting out.