Countertransference and technique in working with the regressed patient: further remarks

In working with regressed patients, the most effective interpretations are based frequently on information gathered through transference-countertransference interactions, interactions that often depend on the patient's projective and the analyst's introjective identification. A group of regressed analytic patients seek to rid themselves of tension predominantly by evacuating their unconscious fantasies or projecting them into the analyst. A fragment of the analysis of such a patient illustrates how her fantasies could not be adequately contained by the analyst because they revived in him inadequately resolved conflicts from early childhood, conflicts that resembled closely those being relived by the patient. His reacting by falling asleep created an emergency that was resolved by his making an unplanned interpretation that proved to be significantly mutative, a 'turning point'.