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This paper was published in 2008 by the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 89: 795–826.
This paper discusses the consequences of the importance that recent3 papers assign to the countertransference. When the latter acquires a theoretical and technical value equal to that of the transference, the analytic situation is configured as a dynamic bi-personal field, and the phenomena occurring in it need to be formulated in bi-personal terms. First, the field of the analytic situation is described, in its spatial, temporal and functional structure, and its triangular character (the present–absent third party in the bi-personal field) is underlined. Then, the ambiguity of this field is emphasised, with special weight given to its bodily aspect (the bodily experiences of the analyst and the patient being particularly revealing of the unconscious situation in the field). The different dynamic structures or lines of orientation of the field are examined: the analytic contract, the configuration of the manifest material, the unconscious configuration – the unconscious bi-personal phantasy manifesting itself in an interpretable point of urgency – that produces the structure of the field and its modifications. The authors describe the characteristics of this unconscious couple phantasy: its mobility and lack of definition, the importance of the phenomena of projective and introjective identification in its structuring. The authors go on to study the functioning of this field, which oscillates between mobilisation and stagnation, integration and splitting. Special reference is made to the concept of the split-off unconscious ‘bastion’ as an extremely important technical problem. The analyst’s work is described as allowing oneself to be partially involved in
the transference–countertransference micro-neurosis or micro-psychosis, and inter pretation as a means of simultaneous recovery of parts of the analyst and the patient involved in the field. Finally, the authors describ