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Sandler presents a few central psychoanalytic concepts (followed by case material) which convey her developmental perspective. Stressing the ambiguity of conflict in psychic life and the progressive adaptations it imposes, she addresses the maladaptive compromises that our patients unwittingly re-enact in analyses. These conflicts are composed of past unconscious wishful fantasies, present repetitive strivings, and defensive, self-protective needs. According to Sandler, the analyst's task, uncovering and analyzing resistance, catalyzes the emergence of the conflict in the here and now of the patient's life and transference.
Sandler believes that resistances emerge in a developmentally determined sequence and that this pattern must be considered in the formulation of interpretations. Does she infer that this is also what is closest to the surface and most emotionally intense? (cf., Shapiro discussion below). Repressed in the course of development and rendered more acceptable by the working through of resistances are aspects of "the child within." She is emphatic that resolution of the present surface resistances must precede any effort at reconstruction. This permits the development of tolerance for early developmental introjects and defenses. Only then can a tempered perspective, the anchoring of present conflicts in terms of the past, be convincingly demonstrated and integrated.
Sandler helps to clarify the concept of transference as more than just repetition of the past. Reconstruction also addresses the inner object relationships of the patient, and the habitual defensive maneuvers which characterize the present structure and function of our patients' minds. Avoiding the "genetic fallacy," the analyst understands that what is reconstructed includes not only, or not primarily, the past experience, but particularly the current inner world of the patient, with fluctuating and revised self-object relationships, habitual defensive mechanisms, projective distor