ABSTRACT
According to Meltzer, the psychoanalytic process consists of a sequence of phases whose evolution can be seen through the modifications in the transference. The qualities of the psychoanalytic attitude are essentially parental qualities. Among these qualities Meltzer emphasizes kindness, patience, and unintrusiveness. Meltzer finds confirmation of Klein's and Bion's theories according to which the most primitive form of relief from mental pain, persecutory anxiety, unwanted parts of the self, and so forth is evacuation into an external object. The analyst's work consists of resisting the patient's oedipal seduction, sorting out zonal confusions, and interpreting the splitting and idealization processes—all this while tolerating the patients anxiety and aggression. The material still shows residues of narcissism, which are revealed by attacks on trust, and depressive anxiety emerges in the relation. The analyst's involvement and the abandonment of the usual interpretation technique is discussed with special reference to the depressive position and the weaning process.
