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In this paper, Gorman draws on his previous work, as well as on that of Wallerstein and Schlesinger, to argue that supportive and interpretive interventions are “inevitable, inextricable and not, by nature, contradictory” (p. 54). He also proposes that the “classical analyst's claim to the objective ability and authority to distinguish supportive from interpretive statements cannot be sustained,” because countertransference is now “recognized to remain radically alive” (p. 54).
The author argues that psychoanalytic attitude, and thus psychoanalysis, has been mistakenly equated with classical analytic technique. He first traces the history of this error, noting that Freud presented his techniques as recommendations; he believed that any approach that “worked by undoing resistances and interpreting transferences” was psychoanalysis (p. 48). The problem began when, because of Freud's status, his technical recommendations, rather than the analytic attitude they were intended to serve, became the defining statement regarding psychoanalysis. In part, the background of Freud's technical recommendations was his abandonment of therapies based on support and persuasion, as well as his adoption of the then-dominant belief in the possibility of a totally objective scientist.
The attempted exclusion of, and diminished importance of, supportive measures in the treatment of symptom neuroses supported the equation of classical technique and psychoanalysis. However,