The relevance of the 'here and now' transference interpretation to the reconstruction of early development

The analytic process is presented as the construction, reconstruction, and interpenetration of narratives concerning the present as well as the past. No 'facts of the case' are given, all are mediated by constructions of the analysand and analyst. Through the narrative search for repetitions, and as a means of establishing the transference neurosis, the analyst retells both the present and the past in ever more co-ordinated and condensed fashion, thereby actualizing the timelessness of unconscious mental activity in the here-and-now analytic transference. The selection from the plenitude of narrative possibilities inherent in the analytic content is guided and controlled by the analyst's theoretical orientation and the analysand's responsiveness to the analyst's interventions. In the end, the analytic life history and the history of the analysis are constituted by an intermingling of observation and theory, subject and object, and present and past. A brief clinical illustration is included.