Interaction in Psychoanalysis A Broadening Horizon

To view all that occurs in the analytic arena, including verbal exchange, as interaction broadens the horizon and affects our understanding of the analytic process, transference-countertransference, therapeutic action, and theory of technique. This paper focuses particularly on implications of the organization model of transference: the process of illuminating transference, the mutual interactional shaping that occurs in the analytic relationship, and the distinction between the content and the process of communications. Defining countertransference as the analyst's experience of the patient, the paper proposes that all analysts, regardless of persuasion, use their experience of the patient (that is, countertransference) as the central guide to analytic exploration and understanding. Differences in analysts' experience of their patients arise not only because of different models and respective subjectivities, but also because of the variable use of two principal listening perspectives: listening from within the patient's vantage point (subject-centered listening perspective) and listening from the as-the-other (other-centered) vantage point. The paper proposes that the analyst's listening from within and as-the-other, oscillating in a background-foreground configuration, can illuminate more fully the patient's experience of self and of self in relation to others. And, finally, recognizing that all interventions are interactions firmly anchors the interpretive process and its power within relational experience and opens the door to reassessing and potentially embracing the many varied forms of interventions that contribute to the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis.