ABSTRACT
Benjamin Wolstein was among a group of analysts in the 1950s that grappled with the dyadic and mutual dimensions of the psychoanalytic situation. This chapter reviews the concept of enactment with an emphasis on the role of the analyst's participation as conceptualized by the various theoretical perspectives. It then provides an historical context for Wolstein's clinical theorizing, most importantly Ferenczi and his experiment with mutual analysis, as well as some of the early pioneers of interpersonal psychoanalysis. The chapter describes Wolstein's idea of the interlock as it relates to more current theories of interaction, with particular attention to the processes involved which account for the seemingly insurmountable difficulties it presents. It examines the 'working-through' process, including the emergence of intersubjectivity in the resolution of the interlock. British Middle School theorists such as Little (1951, 1957), Heimann (1950) and Winnicott (1949) extended the term 'countertransference' beyond its definition as merely an intrusion of the analyst's pathology.
