Epilogue: Countertransference as the Interface Between the Intrapsychic and the Interpersonal

The preceding papers suggest that the debate on the interpersonal versus the intrapsychic points of view be moved to a new level — one of synthesis. There seems to be a consensus among the contributors that the old conflict is no longer a major focus for debate, demonstrating that developments in psychoanalysis over the last 40 years have already been influenced by the interpersonal perspective. No one any longer sees the individual as unfolding sui generis. But an interesting new current has arisen in the last 20 years. The findings of infant and child observational research now enable us to describe inherent characteristics of the infant — indeed of the fetus — which, if they do not confirm the existence of Freud's drives, nevertheless testify to the existence of biological structures that are not very distant from Freud's idea of the drives. There appear to be “prewired” innate patterns in the infant for responsiveness to the environment and to the mother from the beginning. If this is so, there must be comparable “prewiring” in the mother (or other primary caregivers) which readies her to respond to the baby. Thus we are confronted with a new biology of the interpersonal realm, which, surprisingly for the interpersonalists, returns us to a point not far from where the debate between the intrapsychic and interpersonal realms began. The ground for this return was not well prepared by Sullivan,