Prologue

Franz Alexander's original formulation of the corrective emotional experience consisted of the psychoanalyst's efforts to utilize the discrepancy between the expectations transferred from the past and the current behavior of the analyst. This emphasis is to be accomplished by interpreting the clinical transference.

The essence of the therapeutic process consists of the difference between the physician's reaction and that of the parents, parent substitutes and/or siblings. The objective nonevaluating attitude which has the emotional connotation of helpful interest is certainly a most significant factor revival in the transference situation. Equally important, however, is the recognition on the patient's part that these reactions are not suited to the analyst's reactions, not only because he is objective but also because he is what he is, a person in his own right…. This recognition is not merely intellectual insight, but is at the same time an emotional experience. Simultaneously recognizing and experiencing the discrepancy between the transference feelings directed toward the original objects in the past, and the reactions of the therapist, who is a distinct personality and is experienced as such by the patient, is what I called the corrective emotional experience [Alexander, 1958, p. 327].

Controversy arose when Alexander allegedly recommended that the analyst purposely vary his behavior in order to highlight the