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(Accepted for publication 23 October 2014)
The two discussions of my paper raise important questions, both for the Psychoanalytic Controversies Section and for the field, about the possibility of dialogue between psychoanalysts with disparate models and approaches. Having written a paper in which I present a specific theoretical model and illustrate it with process material, which I believe shows the consequences of the model, I am struck by the fact that neither discussant has engaged fully either with the theoretical model itself or with what I would see as an essential link between that model and the clinical approach that it yields. Nevertheless, viewed together, I think that my own paper and those of the discussants bring to life certain contemporary controversies surrounding the concepts of phantasy and transference. In addition to addressing my discussants' specific comments in my response, I will attempt to sketch these broader issues and to clarify the connections between theory and practice in my own work and the ways in which my own approach may differ from those of discussants.
It is important to observe first, I think, that the three papers reflect important areas of agreement. All three of us operate upon the belief that a central aspect of analysis has to do with the patient's coming into contact with aspects of the self that have remained outside consciousness. Similarly, we are in agreement that the transference is a key expression of those unconscious aspects of self as well as the forces that hold them outside conscious experience. In addition, all of us would agree that the analyst's countertransference is an important way that the analyst comes to understand the unfolding analytic process and gains access to unconscious elements of it.
Differences arise between Stern, Feldman and myself with regard to the nature of those unconscious aspects of the self and whether we feel that the concept of phantasy affords the best way of characterizing them. Dif