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VI. SPECIFIC NORTH AMERICAN PERSEPECTIVES AND DEVELOPMENTS
Freud’s early idea of the “transference neurosis,” its establishment and cure by the therapeutic work, became one of the hallmark ideas of North American psychoanalysis during the much later period of hegemony of “classical psychoanalysis” (a term denoting American Ego psychology of the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s). Although this idea has since lost much of its influence, during the “classical” era the establishment and resolution of a transference neurosis was virtually defining of psychoanalytic treatment. Treatments lacking in a clear transference neurosis and its “cure” were commonly questioned as to whether or not they were “truly” psychoanalytic. At this time Strachey’s view still had many adherents and North American (the American Psychoanalytic Association – “APsaA”) analysts of the “classical” period found themselves largely limiting their comments to analysands to the transference or needing special reasons for doing otherwise. Analytic technique based on Strachey’s principle was widely taught to students at APsaA institutes. Nonetheless, acceptance of Strachey was not universal, and analytic work in the extra-transference was widely if more quietly practiced. It is important in discussing the evolution of the transference concept that one keep track of the evolution of its ever-present partner, countertransference. It has been widely accepted (although recently disputed, see Holmes, 2014) that beginning with Freud’s early writing and correspondence on the subject, countertransference was viewed – initially and through the 1950’s and ‘60s – as a largely unconscious, highly personal if not idiosyncratic reaction in the analyst that impeded or interfered with an analyst’s capacity to function as the analyst of the particular patient evoking the countertransference. In short, countertransference was a problem in the analyst that often if not regularly was deemed to require further analytic (or at least self-analytic) work by – or upon – the treating analyst. Despite its parallel to transference, countertransference was viewed as discontinuous, cropping up at particular moments or phases in an analysis. It was also viewed, like transference, not so much as an interpersonal event taking life from the interaction of two particular individuals but rather as the activation of a pre-existing template or schema of the analyst’s in response to – but not in its essence shaped by – the analysand. The deliberate intensive study of countertransference as a phenomenon in and of itself as well as a unique product of a specific dyad in a particular and unique analytic situation was to wait for future elaboration. VI. A. Edith Jacobson and Hans Loewald: Transitional Thinkers of Classical Psychoanalysis Within the “classical” tradition were transitional thinkers beginning to bridge the divide between one-person drive theorists and two-person relational perspectives. The two contributors who were perhaps most prominent and influential were Edith Jacobson and Hans Loewald. Both emerged from the ego psychological tradition but felt that perspective to be
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