ABSTRACT
There are many people who think that psychoanalytic propositions lack scientific credibility. Yet psychoanalytic psychotherapists suppose they are dealing with facts of mental life. If the facts are indeed facts, then they might be expected to show themselves, either directly or indirectly, in phenomena amenable to measurement by non-psychoanalytic methods. One of the central claims of this book is that in assessment consultations, as in psychoanalytic psychotherapy per se, there is much to be gained from working in the transference. The transference is what a patient brings to, and relives in, his or her relationship with the therapist. A core feature of psychoanalytic thinking is that there is constant interplay between relations that are external, in the sense of being lived out with others, and those that are internal, in the sense of being represented and lived out within an individual's mind.
