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This book consists of an introduction by Dieckmann followed by eleven papers on transference and countertransference written between and —six by analysts from Berlin, three from Zürich and two from London. All the papers with one exception (that by H. J. Wilke) have been previously published and five of them were noticed in the ‘Journal Review’ section of this Journal (January and July ). The book sets out to show how the ‘three different European schools of analytical psychology—London, Berlin and Zürich—have approached this problem’. Surprisingly, the editor brackets Fordham and Adler together as representing the ‘London school’. Regrettably, it does not contain contributions from any other German groups nor from countries like France, Italy, Israel and the U.S.A. The bibliography contains 145 references, among them several by analysts of the Society of Analytical Psychology and some psychoanalysts. As the articles reflect significant differences in the understanding of transference/countertransference by analytical psychologists of different groups, and as all but one paper are only available in German, I shall briefly review each paper individually. I have translated the titles of the papers into English.
The main thesis of Adler's erudite paper ‘The transpersonal aspect of transference (presented by means of a case)’, is this: having analysed the personal unconscious within the transference relationship the patient must experience the transpersonal contents of the unconscious outside the transference as, in Adler's view, reductive personal interpretations would destroy the numinous experience. The analyst then acts merely as a temenos, in which the patient's internal coniunctio can safely take place. The personal and collective unconsciouses are treated as separate entities. I feel that this ‘narcissistic’ coniunctio neglects the importance of object relations in the individuation process and could bring about splitting and depersonalising processes.
The second