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.
This book is a collection of papers to which seven senior members of the British Association of Psychotherapists (BAP) have contributed. Each essay discusses a problem or impasse the author has encountered in the course of her clinical work mainly with borderline and severely traumatized patients, particular attention being paid to the transference and countertransference as they have evolved during the treatment process and to their technical handling. In the best Independent tradition, the authors discuss creatively and sometimes critically those concepts that have appeared to them most relevant in giving meaning to their clinical work (Tonnesmann 1999).
The book consists of an introduction by the editors followed by a series of chapters by authors with a common allegiance to the Independent tradition in psychoanalysis. The chapter titles include ‘Who and whose I am: the emergence of the true self’ by Sue Johnson; ‘The concept of internal cohabitation’ by Jocelyn Richards; ‘How far is transference interpretation essential to psychic change?’ by Anne Tyndale; ‘The absent mother: splitting as a narcissistic attempt to find a solution’ by Judy Cooper; ‘The move from object relating to object usage: a clinical example’ by Sue Johnson; ‘The potential for trauma in the transference and countertransference’ by Ruth Berkowitz; ‘Erotic transference and its vicissitudes in the countertransference’ by Viqui Rosenberg; ‘Dreaming and day-dreaming’ by Anna Witham.
The editors point to a number of questions raised by these papers. For instance might the false self of the patient be paralleled by the lack of analytic neutrality in the therapist - and who is always totally neutral and could we work usefully if we were? Is a new theory needed for patients who appear to exhibit two distinct personalities? Is transference interpretation essential and can therapeutic change occur in the patient without it? Can the therapist, in becoming the transference object for the patient and appare