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It is now commonly agreed that the central issue in both psychoanalytic theory and practice is the shift from the intrapsychic premise of interpretation as providing mutative insight to interpretation as relational participation with the patient; that is, interpretation not as the imparting of truth to the patient about the patient, but rather as an interaction with the patient, since every interpretation is a choice and is necessarily colored by the therapist's participation in the process. This appears as a less radical concept to some analysts than to others; but the orthodox analytic community, as a whole, has been struggling for some years now to integrate quite radical departures from the mutative interpretation view and still maintain the integrity and continuity of the psychoanalytic movement. In order to do so, a narrative of continuity must be created—that interpretation as insight flows logically into interpretation as relationship; otherwise, one might possibly be confronted with a view of the psychoanalytic movement as fragmenting.
To be fair, I must first make my own orientation clear. I am an interpersonal psychoanalyst, affiliated with the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Institute, which has a long history of interest in the therapist/patient relationship and an equally long history of being outside the fold. There is a very extensive literature on relational psychoanalysis which has been largely unknown to traditional analysts, but it is now beginning to attract attention. Still, it is astonishing to see a book on the move from interpretation to relation contain no reference to current literature, such as Greenberg and Mitchell's book, Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory, widely considered a seminal text.1
Meissner is University Professor of Psychoanalysis, Boston College, and Training and Supervising Analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute; and, as a prominent author and teacher, he is