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The in-depth exploration of any psychological phenomenon, no matter how well circumscribed clinically, will inevitably necessitate the broadening of the boundaries of the exploration in order to place it in context. Phobias are no exception.
For a long time the clinical and theoretical study of the phobic symptom was dominated by the imaginative interpretation of the patient's unconscious fantasies and their vicissitudes. It is hard to overestimate the enormous appeal of such interpretations for the analyst. It can be compared to the reaction Freud reported when he visited the Acropolis, “So all this really does exist, just as we learned in school.”
With time, however, the analyst's excitement has been tempered by the fact that many of the phobic patients neither share the analyst's excitement about the interpretations of the unconscious fantasies nor improve clinically as a result of such interventions.
The preceding contributions illustrate that the contemporary psychoanalyst has taken notice of the fact that all phobias cannot be effectively dealt with simply by the interpretation of their symbolic meaning. Instead, our contributors, to various extents, approach phobias as a manifestation of a more general and basic pathology, structurally and developmentally.
This development has important clinical implications because the phobic symptom is no longer the main focus of the analyst's attention, but a stepping stone in addressing the deeper level of psychopathology upon which the whole personality organization rests.