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Another line of development was through British Object Relations theories, mainly due to Bion’s sojourn in Los Angeles, shaping, among others, his prominent analyzand James Grotstein’s prolific theoretical output and his student Thomas Ogden’s concept of the analytic third. .In its most general form, the concepts of ‘the third’ can be viewed as an extension of the field’s transitional creative constructive properties. Specific formation of ‘the analytic third’ is generated by the dialectic of the subjectivities of the analysand and the analyst (Katz, 2013). Among field-related ‘ analytic third ’ conceptualizations, Thomas Ogden (1994) writes that the intra-psychic views of transference and countertransference should not only be complemented by the inter-subjective picture of a transference-countertransference matrix, but these perspectives are to be seen as constituting a dialectic leading to an ‘(inter-subjective) analytic third’ , a new evolving subjectivity, comprising (analogically to the field), something more than the sum of its parts. In the framework of French psychoanalysis, André Green ’s (1975) version of ‘the analytic third’ is an elaboration of the Winnicottian transitional object and Green’s own concept of ‘the negative’. In its application to the psychoanalytic situation, Green (1997) posits “the exchanges between patient and analyst or, in other terms, between transference and countertransference processes, as creating an ‘analytic third’, a specific outcome of analysis” (p.1072). Here, the analytic frame as a ‘third’ lends support to the mental functioning of the patient in its capacity to form a shared ‘ analytic object.’ (Green, 1972, 1975) Of particular note is Andrea Celenza ’s (2022) ‘translating’ various field related conceptualizations into clinical practice, in terms of ‘ directed’ and ‘diffuse’ attentional sets , with pertaining links to various forms of transference. In everyday clinical process these two attentional sets tend to oscillate, yet sometimes a particular attentional set may be prioritized, depending on the nature of clinical process, clinical goals of the analyst, and phases in treatment. According to Celenza, differences among the two broad categories of technical stances of listening can be viewed by identifying which type of transference is being realized . Prioritizing a directed attentional set is well-suited to evoke and explore a repetitious transference identified by Freud (1914, 1915, 1917a). This form of transference is constituted by the projection/displacement of figures of the primary objects of love, hate, identification of the patterns, and occasion the effort at historical reconstruction. Alternatively, transferences constituted by projective identificatory mechanisms in the moment, creating a pathology of the field (Baranger, Baranger & Mom, 1983), initially engage a diffuse attentional set. This form of diffuse receptivity is associated with Freud’s (1912c) evenly hovering attention, (1988) listening without memory or desire, Ogden’s (2005) immersion in reverie, ‘dream fields’ of Ferro (2009), Ferro & Civitarese (2013), Civitarese’s (2008) oscillation between immersion and interactivity, and ‘expanding relational freedom’ of Donnel B. Stern (2015). This allows unconscious emanations to become manifest. These may warrant interpretive clarification, and then, the so-called “second look” (Baranger, Baranger & Mom, 1983, p. 2) engages a more causal, directed attentional set as the analyst identifies a possible enactment through projective identificatory mechanisms (Baranger, Baranger & Mom, 1983; Cassorla, 2005, 2008). These then can be identified and interpreted in line with
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