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Psychoanalysts have been showing increased interest in clinical work that features sustained close attention to, and interpretation of, the here-and-now interplay of transference and countertransference. The principal source of that approach, especially of its most innovative aspects, seems to me to be the work of the contemporary Kleinian analysts in London. The examples of that work that have been presented in these pages are exemplary in their clear and fruitful attention to fine detail and their constructive self-criticism. Studying them should benefit the clinical understanding of every analyst.
An additional benefit to be gained is further counteraction of the tenacious stereotype of the Kleinian analyst that one continues to encounter, particularly in the United States. In this stereotype, the analyst endlessly and omnisciently uses even the most casual-seeming associations to explain the analysand to the analysand in great depth; especially emphasized are bodily organs, zones, and modes (anatomical “part-objects”). Indifferent to conscious accounts of past and present life circumstances, the analyst engages in free-wheeling symbolic interpretation and detailed reconstructions of the early infantile past, and this relentless reductionism manifests no concern for the patient's preparedness for anything of the sort. For too long, this stereotype has limited the recognition due the contemporary Kleinian as a major progressive force in psychoanalysis today. The contemporary approach is summarized here in an excellent introductory,