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One unfortunate outcome of orthodoxy is that it both stifles discovery and stands in the way of professional honesty. By and large I believe we are afraid to expose our work with the kind of clinical material that may render us vulnerable to criticism or, even worse, to public analysis of our character. Do we not, in such an atmosphere, keep our most important clinical insights to ourselves?
Surely the concept of the “real” relationship, how we view it and how we see its role in the analytic process, is one that may well open us to the criticism of our colleagues. Greenson (1971) notes the view of the more “conservative” classical analysts that “all the patient's meaningful reactions to the person of the analyst are transference manifestations and the only important interventions are transference interpretations …” (p. 425).
This stands in contrast with those who see the total object relationship as relevant to the treatment process. I speak from this point of view and agree in part with Friedman (1984), who tells us that “the forces that determine the outcome of the treatment relationship are inevitably interpersonal” (p. 172). The cognitive changes that result from interpretation and understanding must also be part of the process in my view.
Greenson (1967) describes two aspects of what is real in the real relationship. It may mean “realistic, reality oriented or undistorted as contrasted to the term ‘transference’ which connotes unrealistic, distorted, and inappropriate. The word may also refer to genuine, authentic, and true in contrast to artificial, synthetic or assumed” (p. 169). The transference relationship may feel genuine, but it will not be realistic. On the other hand, the working