ABSTRACT
The pressures that precede a transference/counter-transference enactment are complex and may be experienced as compelling. This chapter believes that particular aspects of the twin relationship that are reflected in the transference create an atmosphere that predisposes the analytic pair to enactment. Emerging from a state of mind governed by such mechanisms creates unbearable pain and a fear of fragmentation. The primitive transference twin based on the early twinning with the breast and with the actual twin represents an archaic object relationship such as those described by Feldman. Enactment is particularly prevalent in thick- and thin-skinned narcissistic patients at the point of transition from one narcissistic state to another, just when interpretation becomes therapeutically effective. The psychically and physically violent narcissistic twinning was thus a potent force in the analysis as the psychic mechanisms of splitting and projection were echoed in the twin transference relationship.
