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One cannot suppose that material such as that in Chapter VII can be convincing in regard to details of the formulation, yet it is illustrative of the modes of thought and methods of work in the group whereby the in-breeding of thought and expression give rise to a homogeneity of outlook which cannot avoid being idiosyncratic in its superficial aspects. But it will be seen to illustrate the points which we must now examine in detail in our investigation of the nature of the analytic work.
In a certain sense all of this book is dedicated to the thesis that the major work of analysis is done in the unconscious of the patient whence the “natural history” of the analytic process emanates. The analyst's contribution, on the other hand, is of two sorts, the creation and maintenance of the setting within which the analytic process, the evolution of the transference, can take place, and secondly in creating that aspect of the interpretive process which at various points facilitates the passing of certain obstacles to this evolution as well as, by the building up of insight, bulwarks the personality of the patient against regression. As these two functions appear to be fundamentally distinct, they may usefully be dealt with separately in terms of (a) the setting and (b) the working through.
The fundamentals of analytic technique were made explicit by Freud, and have changed little since, particularly in the series of technical papers before World War I. There is no need to review them here. The gradual evolution, or one might say, the purification, of the method has come about so that psycho-analysis is now a clearly distinguishable process