You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In the medical and surgical literature Clinico-Pathologic Conferences are held and the proceedings published to help doctors learn from post mortem studies of poor outcomes. Rarely are intuitive and successful paradoxical and idiosyncratic treatment procedures described. The psychiatric equivalent of both situations is described in Transference Neurosis and Transference Psychosis.
This book contains (1) narratives of Dr. Little's analytic treatment of severely mentally ill patients, most of whom were mature adults; (2) theoretical discussions of countertransference, transference, basic unity and symbiosis, reciprocity and mutuality; (3) general papers related to personality development; and (4) personal experiences illustrated by poems, reminiscences, and a dialog with Robert Langs.
Open, direct communication of experiences not comfortable to live with nor easy to describe are in Margaret Little's papers in this book. In company with Kernberg, Masterson, and Mahler she continues the development of our knowledge about severely ill and sometimes psychotic patients.
She describes transference, countertransference, and other phenomena as they have actually occurred in her practice. She does this without going into complicated theoretical formulations or hesitating to confront the most complicated theoretical issues. It is refreshing to read her straightforward interpretation of the countertransference reality to her patients.
Group psychotherapists can learn from her ideas on basic unity as they relate to groups, belonging, and Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921).
Her comments on Early Mothering Care (pp. 170-171) repeat succinctly what has been underemphasized in the last few years. Although implicit in all the comment about symbiosis and differentiation, the importance of permitting a new mother to express her feelings toward her new baby and enjoy it has seldom been mentioned. Little extrapolates to the case of the mentally sick patients who are co