ABSTRACT
The Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis (WPIP) Team's account highlighted three interrelated themes: the communication by projective identification of poorly symbolized experiences and phantasies; in particular, a mix of oedipal and incestuous unconscious phantasies and traumatic experiences; and envious superego defences. In the case of the WPIP workshops, the objective is to deepen our understanding of how psychoanalysts really carry out first interviews. Indeed, very interesting group processes arise when case material like this is studied in psychoanalytic peer-group clinical workshops. Traumatic impact seems to explain what happened when the analyst brought her process not to one of the WPIP Clinical Workshops. The Clinical Workshop's reaction to this case was very interesting. The group was engaged, friendly and constructive, but for much of the first, free-associative workshop session, it adopted a subtly critical and sometimes nearly attacking stance, especially towards the patient, but also occasionally towards the analyst's technique.
