Editor's Introduction

The first three contributions to this issue of JASW were originally presented as a panel discussion at the 5th National Clinical Conference of the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis.1 Although JASW has published a number of individual conference papers in the past, our publication of the entire panel on “Screen Memories, Early Memories, and Transference on the Path to Change” From the NMCOP's last national conference represents something of a departure for this journal. The theme of these papers is transference, its evolution, and clinical management. The cases presented by Shechter and Gill differ in significant aspects, yet represent familiar dynamic themes and clinical dilemmas that clinicians are likely, to encounter in psychoanalytic work. In the first case (Shechter), involving a 32-year-old woman, the patient's conflicts are understood in triadic terms, and the adaptive resolution of oedipal issues via the transference enables the patient to enhance her capacity for heterosexual intimacy. In the second case (Gill), the therapist recognizes the pre-oedipal basis of her 35-year-old male patient's erotic transference, and is able to make a mutative interpretation that leads to profound changes in her patient's intrapsychic life. The third paper (Brandell) both focuses on the specific