Meeting of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York

DISCUSSION: Dr. Harold P. Blum first considered the paper in the context of the historical development of the concept of transference. He pointed out that Freud had alluded to the compromise and defensive aspect of transference in 1912. The early pioneers, however, were mainly concerned with transference of libidinal wishes and with lifting repression of traumatic memories. Today's analysts, he said, "now take into account the much more complex relationship between the wishes of childhood and traumatic experience, between fantasy and reality. In Dr. Arlow's terms, the concept of the recovery of traumatic memories and noxious experience shifts to the analysis of the totality of intrapsychic conflict, particularly as conflicts are organized by the individual ego in the derivative compromise of unconscious fantasy." Dr. Blum emphasized the distortion of technique inherent in "transference-only" analysis, and noted specific problems which may lead to the analyst's failure to attend to extratransference material. These include the analyst's counterresistance to aspects of the patient's experience. Unconscious collusions may develop between patient and analyst to keep certain material outside of the analysis. "In a case of exclusive transference interpretation an artificial illness may occur, an iatrogenic 'folie à deux.' A central conflict or important reality is missed, while the area of the transference becomes a shared defense." Finally, Dr. Blum considered the relevance of Dr. Arlow's contribution to current controversies concerning transference. As Dr. Blum had argued in his 1983 paper, the patient does experience the analyst's real attributes and behavior; this fact raises issues which, although not beyond interpretation, are beyond pure transference interpretation. In the current discussion he stated, "The analyst may elicit, validate, or anchor transference reactions, for example, not only through countertransference, but through communication and me