The Logic of Transference Interpretation

It is now widely accepted that one of the most important parts of the psychoanalytic technique is the transference interpretation. The purpose of this paper is to examine some aspects of this concept from a philosophical point of view: more specifically to compare some of the theoretical statements made about transference interpretation with some of the implicit rules which seem to govern its use in the clinical situation. It will be argued that there are discrepancies of a logical kind between the theoretical statements and the implicit rules: i.e. if one examines the situations in which a transference interpretation is given in clinical practice and the kind of evidence to which it is answerable, one finds that it is appropriate to a statement rather different in underlying structure from that implied by most theoretical discussions of interpretation.

One of the clearest theoretical statements about the underlying structure of interpretation of the classical Freudian School is that of Ezriel (1956) and for this reason his account will be used as the basis for discussion. He holds that a complete transference interpretation draws the patient's attention to three kinds of object relation: the required relationship which the patient is engaging in or trying to engage in with the therapist, in order to avoid engaging in the avoided relationship, which is feared by the patient because of the calamity which, in his fantasy, would result. It is principally the first two parts of this chain, the required and avoided relationships and the link between them, which are the subjects of scrutiny in this paper: they are of course very close to the classical Freudian notions of defence (required relationship) and impulse (avoided relationship).

We will first question the thesis that the avoided relationship is not engaged in 'externally' in reality; that it is kept 'in the patient's head' and can only be inferred by the therapist from the patient's