Prologue

IT IS THE ERA OF PLURALISM OF MODELS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS. IN THE shift from positivistic to relativistic science, science has recognized that theoretical models, explicitly articulated or implicitly operative, affect findings. It is now well recognized that no one can legitimately claim “objectivity” or “certainty.” This paradigmatic change, in turn, has generated a pluralism of psychoanalytic models that are now compared in their theoretical suppositions and clinical applications. Comparative psychoanalysis is at its best when representatives of a number of perspectives discuss the same detailed case material. This is particularly the case when the clinical presenter and discussants are all prominent psychoanalysts. When well-respected senior psychoanalysts present detailed clinical data, the discussants and you, the reader, get a meaningful “feel” for the material. While all too rare, it is occurring more frequently. Three such explorations have been published previously in  Psychoanalytic Inquiry: the first with clinical material from a classical perspective (1987, Vol.  7, No. 4)↗, the second from a self-psychological perspective (1990, Vol.  10, No. 4), and the third from an object relational perspective (2001, Vol.  21, No. 4). The last was based on the proceedings of the First Annual Conference of the Association for Autonomous Psychoanalytic Institutes (AAPI) (www.AAPIonline.org).

The comparative psychoanalytic study that follows was the basis of the Second Annual Conference of AAPI, held in New York City on September 28, 2002. The title of the panel was “Perspectives on a Case Study of Power and the Eroticized Transference-Countertransference Interaction.” Joseph Newirth, Ph.D. presented an analytic case in the middle phase of the analytic experience. His introduction describes his theoretical orientation and is followed by two verbatim sessions with his analysand. The case material and sessions are especially interesting because the analysand is a colleague within