ABSTRACT
"Holding" and "containing" seem to have become something like a mark of excellence to describe a laudable posture on the part of the analyst/therapist towards his patient. Winnicott adopted a totally different approach to the regressed patient. "Holding" was Winnicott's word to describe a particular attitude of support, care, non-intrusive and non-demanding attention that the analyst would offer his patient when the patient had regressed to a position of dependence. Stern and colleagues published the findings of their study group on "Non-interpretative mechanisms in psycho-analytic therapy". They argue that interpretations of the patient's unconscious are not the only important factor in the therapeutic interaction between patient and analyst. They also focus on the "shared implicit relationship", where patient and analyst learn of each other on the basis of minimal, mostly non-verbal cues. Developmental psychologists feel justly very proud of the advances that recent research has brought to the understanding of the emotional development of the child.
