ABSTRACT
Mark, who is in his mid-30s, returned to our once-weekly sessions following a three-week spring break, sat down, smiled, and said that he had expected that the author might not have remembered that he would be returning. The author and his group were only then coming to understand not only some of the contents of his internal world, but something of how it may operate. In presenting part of the session to colleagues discussing once-a-week therapy, it was noted that the session dealt with material in a manner that was indistinguishable from sessions that take place at greater frequency, in terms of unconscious processes, associative material, interpretation of that material along with aspects of the patient's resistance, as understood through the author's experience of the transference and countertransference. What is perceived as inadequate analysis of the transference—inattention to separation anxiety, acts of reassurance, and so forth—are by definition psychotherapy, whereas their effective counterparts are understood as psychoanalysis.
