You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Thus far I have described the technical procedures which should be followed in analyzing the everyday varieties of transference reactions. However, transference situations do arise occasionally in the analysis of patients from every diagnostic category which may call for some special handling. For example, an acute emotional storm may lead the patient to embark on some dangerous acting out of his transference feelings. In such a situation, the temporary absence of a reasonable ego in the patient will require some technique other than analysis. In general, however, over the last score or more of years there seems to be an increase in special problems which arise from diverse sources.
First of all, there seems to be a change in the type of patient seeking psychoanalytic therapy since World War II. In part this
may be due to the increased popularity of psychoanalysis. On the other hand, we are now attempting to treat patients psychoanalytically who would not have been considered suitable for such treatment in the past. (Stone, 1954b; A. Freud, 1954a). This extension of the scope of psychoanalytic therapy may be regarded as an experimental attempt to apply therapeutically our increased knowledge and experience in regard to ego psychology and early childhood development. However, some of the special problems we meet may be due to unrecognized deviations in technique and to errors in the appraisal of the patient.
This present discussion of special problems in analyzing the transference will be limited to those patients who at the outset seem suitable for treatment by classical psychoanalysis. Before embarking on a detailed discussion of the problem of analyzability, I would like at this point to refer back to some of Freud's early and basic ideas on this subject. I shall use them as a general guide until we can elaborate these ideas more fully in Volume II.
When Freud (1916-17) differentiated the transference neuroses from the narcissistic neuroses he was stressing the cl