ABSTRACT
A serious discussion of taboo and forbidden thoughts should make one at least somewhat uncomfortable in one way or another. The presumed acknowledgement of the taboo becomes a thinly disguised occasion for self-congratulation. This chapter describes some developments in contemporary psychoanalysis and discusses some of their taboo implications. Special attention is given to transference and countertransference, which are identified as the “common ground” of contemporary psychoanalysis despite differences in theory. Only transference interpretations are therapeutically useful and non-transference interpretations are virtually irrelevant to the analytic process. Many students who are placed in community and hospital clinic settings work with patients, who are often on welfare, are poorly educated, have very difficult lives, and are struggling simply to survive. The chapter shows that taboos and their accompanying selfdeceptions are not only present at the individual intrapsychic level, but are also present at the level of the discipline as a whole.
