ABSTRACT
At this point, I would like to pause and examine some of the issues raised by an emphasis on the clinical centrality of holding processes. Although I believe that the holding process very much includes the analyst's subjectivity, and is thus relationally derived, the notion of holding has met with considerable opposition from some relational theorists. In addition, although my emphasis on the analyst's contain ing function parallels aspects of both Freudian and self-psychological views of the analytic task, there are points of clear divergence between those perspectives and my own.
