Interpretation: The Past in the Present

Dear Sir

In the paper by Ruth Riesenberg Malcolm, 'Interpretation: the past in the present', published in Volume 13, Part 4 of the Review, there is a footnote (page 436) in the author quotes from a paper written by Anne-Marie Sandler and me (1984). The quotation reads as follows:

This problem disappears if we direct our interpretations of conflict to the here-and-now, guided by what we assess to be the predominant affect as shown in the material (and also often in one way or another in the counter-transference). Because the patient's conflicts are always related to the present, it is the current form that is important; their origin in the past unconscious is of secondary concern, a matter to be dealt with for reconstruction accumulates (my italics).

The author expresses some agreement with our viewpoint but goes on to say that she has some doubts about what we mean by 'reconstruction accumulates'. I am not at all surprised that she should have doubts about this, because the text in the article actually reads 'a matter to be dealt with as evidence for reconstruction accumulates' (my italics).

Your faithfully

PS You might want to include the following reference, which in any case is incorrectly cited in the article: Sandler, J. & Sandler, A.-M. (1984). The past unconscious, the present unconscious, and interpretation of transference. Psychoanal. Inq., 4: 367–399.