PSYCHIC REALITY AND THE INTERPRETATION OF TRANSFERENCE

Beginning with Freud's concept of psychic reality as the product of ex ternal events and the patient's unconscious fantasies, the author sugg ests that projective identification, as described by Klein, gives an a ccount of how these two elements combine to produce one's psychic real ity. The transference is an aspect of psychic reality that represents a confusion between the patient and one of his of her objects-the anal yst-brought about by projective identification. A clinical example ill ustrates how the patient's transformation of the analyst's interpretat ions through projective identification contributes to the transference . Analysis of the transference in the analytic relationship allows pat ients to experience their role in the formation of their experience of the world, ''live'' and as it happens. This promotes the integration of the patient's personality. The author compares this approach with o ther approaches to the transference.