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this the ‘total situation’ and this includes all aspects of the patient’s experiences and phantasies, past and present, reported in the analytic session: “For instance, reports of patients about their everyday life, relations, and activities not only give an insight into the functioning of the ego, but also reveal—if we explore their unconscious content—the defences against the anxieties stirred up in the transference situation” (Klein, 1952, p. 437). She deems that all material, generated through free association, is an account of the (unconsciously) split set of the relationship with the analyst. According to Donald Meltzer (1986), the analyst’s task is to ‘gather the transference’ from the myriad ways in which the relationship with the analyst can be represented. In Meltzer’s view, the infantile transference gradually begins to appear in the material in the form of bits of ‘acting in’ or ‘acting out’, of memories or dreams, their recognition and investigation set in motion the analytic process. In response to Merton Gill’s (1979, 1982) critique of the Kleinian approach as focusing on unconscious phantasy and deep interpretation of early and past material “without adequate connection to the current features of the present analytic situation” (Gill, 1979, p. 284), John Steiner (1984) argues that modern Kleinian analysts vary in their approaches, that now commonly include the exploration and interpretation of the complex relationships among current reality, past experience, and unconscious phantasy as expressed in the transference. Both transference and countertransference are understood as a product of projective identification by which split off parts of the patient’s internal objects are disavowed and ascribed to and experienced by the analyst. If recognized, such countertransference reactions inform the analyst’s transference interpretation and underscore the importance of the containing function of the analyst. Steiner concludes, “I think a Kleinian training alerts us to the importance of unconscious phantasy, and our interest in projective processes leads us to emphasize how every piece of observable reality has meaning only in terms of the patient's internal world, which is projected onto the analytic situation. Interpretation of the transference must certainly make contact with the actual external reality, which both analyst and patient can observe. But to be meaningful it must also touch on the patient’s phantasy at a level that is deep enough to enable anxieties to be mobilized and relieved” (Steiner, 1984, p. 461-462). Betty Joseph (1985) emphasizes the importance of the ‘total situation’ as a way for patients to express their conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings in the transference relationship. She also demonstrates how patients use the transference not only to achieve the satisfaction of impulses but also to support their defensive positions. IV. B. Kleinian influences in North America The classical concept of transference analysis in North America has been expanded significantly by the concept of the analysis of the “total transference situation” proposed by the Kleinian approach (Joseph, 1985). It involves a systematic analysis of the transference implications of the patient’s total verbal and nonverbal manifestations in the hours, the patient’s direct and implicit communicative efforts to influence the analyst in a certain direction, and the consistent exploration of the transference implications of material from the patient’s external
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