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In this paper the author calls attention to a screen phenomenon present in the analyst in every psychoanalysis. This he terms the analytic screen which, though stemming from the same sources, differs from countertransference in a number
of ways. Countertransference proper involves a two-person relationship, the analyst and the analysand; but the analytic screen is a kind of three-person relationship, the analyst, the analysand, and the emerging picture in the mind of the analyst of the analysand's first object-love and object-hatred. The analytic screen is characterized by a Gestalt consisting of the analyst as the observer, and of the patient and his objects as the observed, with emphasis on the observation itself. The model situation for the analytic screen is the analyst's own primal scene fantasy, which contains evidence of a sublimated primal scene fantasy by virtue of a blending of curiosity and restitution into the mental attitude of the observer. Each psychoanalytic session is seen as an unconscious primal scene drama enacted by the patient.