Transference

Schachter provides us with a searching and provocative exploration of the classical conceptualization of the transference as a 'transfer' of past experience and disposition into present relationships, along with a plea to replace this construct with the notion of Habitual Relationship Patterns as they operate in the present. Transference: Shibboleth or Albatross? represents a fully logical extension of the ongoing shift in contemporary analytic discourse from the precepts of a one-person psychology to the relational turn into the precepts of a two-person psychology. It has significant implications for our conception of transference and our understanding of psychoanalytic technique and is important reading for all those concerned - pro and con - with what is happening to traditional psychoanalytic theory today. - Robert S. Wallerstein, M.D., Past President, American Psychoanalytic Association This book by a distinguished psychoanalyst eloquently advocates a major transformation of the psychoanalytic enterprise. It is a very important contribution to a rational dialogue between psychoanalysis and its unsparing critics. Highlights of the book are the disavowal of the received etiologic theory of transference, and a challenge to the venerable tenet that durably effective treatment of a psychiatric disorder requires the therapist's knowledge of its etiology. Indeed, it is a very timely work. - Adolf Gruenbalm, Ph.D., Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy of Science Schachter shows us the direction that must be taken if psychoanalysis is to have a future as an effective clinical method and a serious intellectual discipline. He has the courage and independence of mind to call into question fundamental components of received wisdom, unsupported assumptions that have long hobbled free inquiry in our field. - Owen Renik, M.D., San Fracisco Psychoanalytic Institute