What is psychoanalysis now?

Firstly, Freud's classical statement that every treatment that takes into account the phenomena of transference and resistance deserves the designation psychoanalysis is critically examined in a current, post-classical context. The confusion as a consequence of the fact that two different concepts of transference are often used indiscriminately is elucidated. Likewise, the dynamic conditions of two types of resistance--the classical type, as a result of internal conflict, and the interactional type, having to do with empathic failure and countertransference--are disentangled and related to current ideas on two types of conflict, convergent and divergent. This is technically reflected in the understanding of two types of therapeutic action: a nonverbal, object-relational factor as distinguishable from the effect of insight and interpretation. Finally, the dialectics of insight and relation are theoretically clarified through the clinical concepts of background and foreground, which are clinically bound to the concrete psychoanalytical situation and form a tool to distinguish the two types of transference, resistance and conflict.