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Psychoanalytic practice is such a complex phenomenon that it is almost impossible to address any dimension of it without potentially giving short shrift to another. With that caveat, I would like to discuss the nature and importance of noninterpretive factors in analytic process. While the bulk of psychoanalytic thinking always has emphasized the pivotal role of interpretation in producing both insight and internal change, a secondary theme that frequently resurfaces concerns the centrality of the analyst's affective presence in the treatment process. Here, the analyst's capacity to provide an emotionally protective space is believed always to be important, and sometimes essential. It is the analyst's holding function that allows for the creation of a space within which private experience can safely be revealed. While the analyst's protective function may be largely taken for granted much of the time, occasionally it becomes of utmost importance. This is especially true in work with regressed or certain difficult patients who experience interpretations as either useless or destructive. For these patients, to tolerate and to make use of analytic process, the analyst may be required to function primarily within the maternal metaphor; that is, as an evenly available, largely noninterpretive presence who brackets other aspects of his or her responses to the patient.
The maternal metaphor is perhaps most widely associated with Winnicott (cf. 1960a; 1963a, 1963b), who explicitly tied analytic process to the mother-infant relationship. Winnicott noted that the mother's profound, if temporary, identification (primary maternal preoccupation) with her infant's needs allows her largely to experience her infant's needs as if they were her own. It is this maternal identification that allows her to provide what is needed by the infant in a highly