Total Transference and the Complete Counter-Transference

This volume shows the therapeutic power the modern Kleinian psychoanalytic approach can have with patients throughout the diagnostic spectrum. By attending to the interpersonal, transactional, and intra-psychic levels of transference, counter-transference and unconscious phantasy with consistent here-and-now and in-the-moment interpretation, the Kleinian method can be therapeutically successful with severely neurotic, borderline, and narcissistic patients. Extensive clinical material brings the reader right into the analyst's office to hear exactly what the patient says and how the analyst interprets to the patient in order to facilitate change and growth.

Robert Waska, MFT, PhD, is a graduate of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies and has a private psychoanalytic practice for individuals and couples in San Francisco and Marin County. He is the author of ten published textbooks on psychoanalytic theory and technique, is a contributing author for both The Handbook of Contemporary Psychotherapy and The Handbook of Hate, and has published over ninety articles in professional journals. He is also the author of The Modern Kleinian Approach to Psychoanalytic Technique: Clinical Illustrations.

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Disturbances of the Depressive Position Chapter One: The As-If Way of Life Versus the As-Is Way of Life: Confusions between Servant, Master, and Self Chapter Two: Low Frequency Psychoanalytic Engagement with a Depressive Patient: The Beginning Phase of Treatment from a Kleinian Approach Chapter Three: The Graveyard Sentry, Self-Induced Comas, and Building the Better Beast Chapter Four: The Dark Side of the Depressive Position: Severe Struggles with Guilt, Persecutory Loss, and Excessive Reliance on Projective Identification Part Two: Kleinian Work within the Narcissistic Realm Chapter Five: The Difficulties of Working with Thick-Skinned Narcissists: Envy, Projective Identification, and the Internal Void Chapter Six: Striving Toward Useful Interpretations with Narcissistic Patients: Managing Counter-transference Enactments with a Thick-Skinned Narcissist Chapter Seven: Patients Who Avoid the Threat of Persecutory Mourning by Means of Entitlement, Devaluation, and a Demand for Action Chapter Eight: "I Thought I Was Special. If Not, I am Nothing": The Treatment of Primitive Loss and the Defensive Search for Uniqueness Chapter Nine: Lack of Traction in the Analytic Process: Adrift in the Counter-transference Closing Bibliography