ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the topic of transformations in psychoanalysis and refers to alpha function as the "engine of transformations" and in an optimally functioning analytic process the analyst and analysand dream/transform the ambient emotions of the intersubjective field; what R. Cassorla terms "dreams for two". it addresses the ways in which the stable frame holds in abeyance the more primitive anxieties that the analytic couple are not ready to face and that disruptions to that setting/frame can "release" these disorganizing anxieties. The book traces the concept of countertransference from Sigmund Freud's writings through the present and follows the transformation of this concept over nearly 100 years of psychoanalytic thinking. It begins with Freud's early observations about "countertransference" and follows how subsequent generations of analysts viewed and clinically applied the analyst's emotional responses.
