The bipolar self in the psychoanalytic treatment process: clinical-theoretical considerations

This study of "The Two analyses of Mr. Z." compared and contrasted the different clinical and theoretical approaches to the understanding and explanation of the patient's psychopathology and the significantly different outcome of each analytic experience. The conclusion was reached that viewing Mr. Z.'s emerging psychopathology in the transference as defensive against a central, oedipal transference neurosis, precluded the full mobilization and working through of Mr. Z.'s self-pathology in the first analysis. This approach has thus led to limited therapeutic results, mainly through the patient's compliance with the analyst's expectations. The recognition of essentially the same clinical data, as expressions of a mirror transference first and of an idealizing transference later on--the core elements of the new theory--expanded the depth and breadth of the second analytic process. This approach has led to: (1) more accurate genetic reconstructions, (2) a better grasp of the nature of Mr. Z.'s psychopathology, and (3) more profound therapeutic results via transmuting internalizations in the working-through process of the selfobject transferences.