Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

DISCUSSION: Dr. Phyllis Greenacre, while in general agreement with Dr. Brodsky, emphasized the significance of the relation of reality and reality testing which is at least a concomitant and probably an essential part of working through. She felt that the actual move toward reality testing marks an important stage in the working through process, one feature of which is the response obtained from the outside world to internal changes. These tend to solidify the modifications going on in the analysand. The relationship between the sense of reality and working through was especially observable in a group of talented people who tended to embellish reality with their own fantasies, or who easily and convincingly interchanged reality and fantasy. Such patients may show gains in the analysis that appear to be quite fundamental but prove in fact to be quite ephemeral. Dr. Greenacre cautioned that the analyst must beware of the temptation to seduce, encourage, or 'pressure' the analysand to confirm apparent changes which occur in the course of treatment. Results seem better, she noted, when the therapeutic correction is mostly silent and more automatized, taking on some of the qualities of growth. In regard to the importance of recovery of critical events of childhood, Dr. Greenacre felt that it would be difficult to understand adequately the patterning established around the childhood memories without the recovery of critical memories. She also noted the difficulty of dealing with screen affects, especially since these have such a destructive effect on the therapeutic alliance.

Dr. Sidney Tarachow emphasized that the factors which bring about change in analysis are no different from those which bring about change in any other situation in life. He does not feel that working through in the sense of repetition of the past is crucial; working through of the real elements in the relationship to the analyst, especially those favoring identification with the analyst as a