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I found this a refreshing book. Dr Jacoby writes from an experiential rather than from a theoretical point of view. His primary concern is the feeling experience in the analytic process, both his patient's and his own, and basic questions about the analytic relationship are raised and developed. The material was originally presented as a lecture series and the style has remained informal.
He introduces the discussion with a brief survey of the evolution of Freud's ideas on the transference and his focus on a developmental causal point of view. He then gives a succinct account of the vicissitudes in Jung's attitude to the transference and the contribution which he made to the phenomenon in the light of his ideas on the structure of the psyche.
Two of Jung's attitudes particularly concern him: on the one hand transference is to be deplored as ‘a mere over-compensation for a lack of genuine rapport’, which occurs mainly because of the analyst's failure to be ‘on a level’ with his patient; on the other hand, withdrawal of transference projections can lead to transformation; this process, therefore, is an integral component in individuation. In addition there is Jung's statement in the introduction to ‘The psychology of the transference’: ‘It is probably no exaggeration to say that almost all cases requiring long-term treatment gravitate round the transference and that success or failure of the treatment appear to be bound up with it in a very fundamental way.’ Jung of course expands this theme by discussing the symbols in the alchemical text, the Rosarium Philosophorum; that is he focuses on the archetypal depth meaning of the transference. There is some ambivalence here, for while Jung viewed analysis as a dialectical process in which ‘doctor and patient are involved as whole persons’ he can also write dismissively of the ‘banalities of the day to day involvement’ in the analytic relationship and he says his essay is not for ‘beginners who would need to be instructed in