ABSTRACT
Irwin Hirsch points out how many analysts identified with the classical Freudian perspective in North America now embrace conceptions of countertransference and how to work with it that are much broader than they used to be. During the 1980s, 'new' classical conceptions of countertransference, precursors of which had appeared in the work of Heimann, Racker, Little, the Barangers, and Winnicott, began to spread far in the classical literature. It is Hirsch's contention that the 'new' classical conceptions of enactment are not just expansions of those early classical contributions, but versions of the 'observing-participant' model of the interpersonalists. No doubt there will soon be analysts who take the view it describes so much for granted that they will have no idea of its origin in the interpersonal literature. Without sacrificing the inevitable conflicts between the points of view, he has managed to discuss them in a way that can be read with profit, and without rancor, by members of both schools.
