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The theoretical viewpoint of the analyst determines the subjective interpretations of transference-countertransference interactions. In essence, if the belief is that the analyst is a detached, objective observer, then evidently, individuals embracing this tenet will disregard the corpus of works that instead propose that the analyst is a subjective coparticipant (e.g., interpersonal theory).
It seems doubtful today that a unanimous consensus will ever be reached on this issue between different psychoanalytic schools of thought. However, maybe such a consensus is not desirable, and diversity should be considered a sign of health in the field. Even Freud is known to have changed his opinions at later dates. Thus, in my view, to freeze his teachings in time (which were a product of his era), disregarding scientific advancements in other related specialized fields (such as neuroscience), is in itself contradictory with the example he legated in the development and evolution of his creative ideas.
Although Freud had freer interactions with his patients than classical training in the United States and South America today considers permissible, Gill (1982) has endorsed Freud's model as long as analysts take into account the effects of their “technical or nontechnical” conduct on the patient's subsequent transference reactions (p. 3). As Eber (1990) recently pointed out, other authors (Epstein and Feiner, 1979; Schwaber, 1979; Levenson, 1983, 1987; Atwood and Stolorow, 1984) have also convincingly argued for recognition of the interaction of both members of analytic dyads, calling attention to transference in the here-and-now instead of viewing it exclusively as a reenactment of past experiences. (A review of the