ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the guilt and shame evoked by the analyst's therapeutic and object functions and also on the fate of the analyst's primary areas of shame, guilt, and despair. The paradox of the first self-other configuration is, that while the child or patient believes herself to be bad, crazy, evil, or hateful, she also experiences more of the parent's or analyst's love and positive regard than Karen would if she failed to view the parent's negative qualities as her own. Karen's father died suddenly when she was 9 years old and Jody Messler Davies have often suspected that her mother struggled with bouts of depressive psychosis. However, even if the therapist can free herself from her own toxic self states and from her need to evacuate them into the patient long enough to reflect on what is happening in the therapeutic relationship and to interpret that process; the therapeutic/interpretive dilemma remains problematic.
