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January 20, 1964. THE LIMITATIONS OF TECHNIQUE. Sidney Tarachow, M.D.
The total psychoanalytic treatment situation is characterized by an object relationship between the analyst and patient which develops to its most regressive extent, namely, psychic fusion (symbiosis) between the two. This is the basis for various antitheses which express the conditions and limitations of treatment. The psychoanalytic situation drives toward fusion and must be differentiated from psychoanalytic work. Psychoanalytic work, i.e., interpretation, drives toward separation, better ego boundaries, improved sense of reality, improved object relations, victory over narcissism, and movement from primary to secondary process and from unconscious to preconscious. Analytic work and the analytic situation are antithetical aspects of the total treatment situation. The dynamic force in the attainment of insight is the enforced process of separation and identification. The motivation in analysis includes both the fear and love of the analyst. The unwilling process of the renunciation of the original symbiosis with mother, as described by Ferenczi, is the model for the crucial aim of analysis. The analytic situation must not be confused with transference neurosis which is created by analytic work; only interpretation is analytic work.
Analytic work itself also has its own antithesis. Interpretation may be viewed either as act or as content. As an act it tightens the bond between analyst and patient; it is an aggression, a penetration, and facilitates fusion. As content, interpretation attempts to establish a separation between patient and analyst and between fantasy and reality. Reassurance interferes with the patient's sense of