Discussion of Sander M. Abend's “Freud, Transference, and Therapeutic Action”

It is a pleasure and honor to discuss Sander M. Abend's text. The central question posed by the author is whether the analysis of the transference may be considered today as “the sole key to the therapeutic efficacy of analysis” (Abend, p. 872).

Abend immediately qualifies this Freudian assertion by saying that he shares the viewpoint of those who, while emphasizing the analysis of the transference, do not make it “the only agent involved in the therapeutic action of psychoanalytic treatment” (p. 872). He asks why Freud, who never hesitated to question his own ideas, did not change this position up through the end of his life, and this despite what he wrote in “Analysis Terminable and Interminable” (1937a) and “Constructions in Analysis” (1937b). Abend then leads us in an impassioned and skillful reading of Freud, a reading that takes into account the twists and turns of the writer's thoughts and his construction.

I am in full agreement with Abend here and I share his passion for this reading. Studying Freud makes me think of a kaleidoscope, a toy that fascinated me as a child. A great number of elements, forms, and colors—and a slight movement makes the structure topple, but just as quickly reconstructs it differently. A new clinical discovery makes Freud rethink it all: he puts everything into the pipeline, plays with concepts,