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The value of a clinical paper is often judged by the wealth of immediate recollections it evokes of cases and situations similar to those described, which give rise to feelings of familiarity and deja vu in the reader. Dr. Natterson's paper elicited such a response in me, but with it came a growing feeling of uneasiness which was not dispelled by a careful perusal of the clinical material and theoretical conclusions. In the end, I was left with a conviction that Dr. Natterson had overstated his case (and he actually has a good one when he criticizes the relentless interpretation of the transference to the exclusion of any other aspects of the patient's life), and that his belief that teachers do not always practice what they preach is a dangerous generalization if used to promulgate technical innovations or variations on accepted techniques which are based on unclear and unsupported theoretical formulations.
Paradoxically, I gained the impression that perhaps the author's approach, in many respects, is not in fact unlike that of most analysts. Unfortunately, his insistence on the use of the term “extra-analytic transference” does not contribute to clarity, as in my opinion the term “transference” should be restricted to certain phenomena observable in the course of, and arising from, psychoanalytic treatment. While no one would question the author's contention that “intense, significant … reactions toward persons and situations outside the analytic relationship are regular occurrences throughout the course of extended psychoanalyses,” to speak of “autonomous transference reactions” is to confuse the issue, as the reader immediately thinks of some acting out of the transference.
But this is not what Dr. Natterson intends to discuss. It is not simply a matter of semantics; it seems to me that the choice of terminology in this instance is used in support of the thesis that the transference is to be interpreted wherever it is to be found. No one would disagree with th