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PARTISAN REVIEW
reality having been forged in equal parts by early external experience and
perception and by internal needs, wishes and fears and earlier layers of
unconscious fantasy compromise formation. Controversy around reali ty
currently puts greater emphasis on early objective reali ty, particularly by
child analysts, self psychologists, and reconstructionist , versus those who
advocate emphasis on fantasy and psychic reality; the here and now sub–
jective experience, and even the creation of narrative truth.
Regarding psychic development, psychoanalysis has moved from the
neater but more simplistic concern with libidinal development only, to a
still rudimentary theory of development of aggression, to a stress on the
development of the various aspects of the ego: its functions-defensive,
autonomous and internalization-and its content, i.e. self and object rep–
resentational units, self esteem and continuity over time. The developing
infant no longer is seen only as a helpless creature of drives seeking grati–
fication and suffering frustration, but as a creature exposed to and
internalizing early interpersonal experience into intrapsychic object rela–
tions units, an internal drama of hopes and fears and expectations, and also
a creature taking the ini tiative in seeking self realization, growth, self–
esteem and integration.
In terms of psychoanalytic treatment, goals of treatment, therapeutic
action and technique, this means that the object of psychoanalysis no
longer is simply to make the unconscious conscious. "Where Id was there
shall Ego be," known as "Id Analysis," is no longer considered sufficient
since unconscious defensive compromises need to be resolved. Resistances,
the manifestations of defenses and character during analytic treatment need
to be addressed in what is called "resistance" or "character analysis." The
clinical concepts themselves have undergone major changes. Transference
to the analyst, not only as the object of transference wishes and drives and
defenses, but also of displaced .concordant and complimentary self and
object images, originally seen as an interference, a false connection to the
analyst, has become the major window for understanding the inner life of
the patient, the major tool to work with, though there still is an argument
as to the amount of transference interpretation only (Gill) versus the use of
extra transference interpretations (Stone), and about the question of early
transference interpretation and the emphasis on the here and now versus
the use of reconstruction. Similarly, resistance, seen early on as something
to remove or attack (Reich's smashing of "character armor") is now con–
ceptualized as the very essence of understanding the ego's precious
defensive way of working; defenses are no longer thought of as something
that can or should be eliminated but as part of a compromjse formation to
be only changed into a more adaptive compromjse. Similarly, as discussed
earlier, the concept of countertranference, i.e. when the analyst is stuck in
an unconscious infantile conflictual identification, or in a unresolved
