I focus this presentation on the patient–analyst relationship within the frame of contemporary psychoanalysis. To do so, I take the Freudian origins of transference as a starting point, then move on to the evolution of the concept of countertransference, and finally reach the essential point: the theory of the analytical field, such as it was described by Willy and Madeleine Baranger, including my own perspective of the subject.

The unconscious fantasy, common to both the patient and the analyst, the unconscious to unconscious communication, the relationship from the intrapsychic towards intersubjectivity and back, as well as neutrality, are all crucial concepts in this presentation, which ends with a clinical vignette where my ideas are illustrated.