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Betty Joseph’s work has stressed the communicative aspects of projective identification in order to maintain psychic equilibrium, and the possibility of this process leading to psychic change, if contained (Joseph 1989). She has pointed out the subtle but powerful pressures exerted on the analyst via the patient’s projections, prompting him or her toward some kind of activity such as answering questions, giving reassurance or giving explanations. This she describes as ‘living out a part of the patient’s self instead of analyzing it.’ The underlying communications here being that the analyst cannot stand or contain the patient’s psychic pain. However, when these pressures can be recognized and addressed, the analyst may be able to give the patient the experience of helpful containment. In Italy , Antonino Ferro (2009) blended Bion’s Theory of thinking and Container- Contained model with Willy and Madeleine Barangers’ bi-personal field theory, which now for Ferro becomes ‘multi-personal’ field theory, where “internal groupings of patient and analyst become engaged in complex interactions, … in terms of α function of the field, β turbulences in the field, and containing qualities of specific sites in the field (♀) and hypercontents (♂) in other sites. … Little by little, all the tools for thinking introduced by Bion will be considered as belonging to the field, of which the current relationship is one of the loci, as is the History which continuously presses to be deconstructed, deconcretized, and redreamed. The same applies to the β elements waiting to be dreamed…” (Sabbadini and Ferro 2010, pp. 424-425; emph. added). Applied to the clinical work, Ferro (2009) and Civitarese (Civitarese 2008; Ferro and Civitarese 2013a, b) stress the use of the analyst’s mind and body, held in reverie, as a guide to the unconscious processes in the patient and between analyst and analysand. (See also separate entry PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD THEORIES AND CONCEPTS) North American analysts such as James Grotstein (1981, 2005), Robert Caper (1999) and Thomas Ogden (2004) have also made substantial contributions to the concept. Specifying the transmission processes within the pre-lexical Container/Contained communication, Grotstein developed his concept of ‘projective transidentification’: “Thus, when the analyst seems to act as a container for the analysand’s…experiences, …the analysand unconsciously projectively identifies his emotional state into his image of the analyst with the hope of ridding himself of a pain and of inducing this state in the analyst by manipulating his image of the latter… The analyst, who is willing to be a helpful co-participant in this joint venture, becomes open and receptive, ... This…eventuates in the analyst’s countercreation of his own image of the analysand projections…” “ (Grotstein, 2005, p. 19-20; emph. J.G.). Caper has stressed how a key element of containment involves the ability of the object receiving the projection to maintain a realistic attitude towards the projected part in order to be able to think about it, and thus return it in a form made more manageable. This he understands as going beyond mere holding, which aims primarily at supporting the patient’s narcissism. Thomas Ogden’s work has focused on the interactive subjectivities involved in projective identification. The Container-Contained model is now widely accepted or greeted with serious scholarly interest, not only within, but also outside the Kleinian group. Among others, Arnold Modell (1989) has highlighted the Containing function of the psychoanalytic setting as a whole, and Judith Mitrani (1999, 2001) has elaborated the import of the analyst’s Containing function within the
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