ABSTRACT
The analyst works on his patient’s emotions as a painter might work on his canvas would be repugnant to psychoanalytic theory and practice. A theory of transformations must be composed of elements and constitute a system capable of the greatest number of uses if it is to extend the analyst’s capacity for working on a problem with or without the material components of the problem present. Transformations have a number of functions, such as notation and record, private and public communication and the pursuit of knowledge. The chapter proposes therefore to study alternately the transformations of the patient and the transformations of the analyst with a view to formulating a theory of transformations superior to those already used consciously and unconsciously. The situation of the psychoanalyst dealing with psychotic transformations is similar to that attributed to nuclear physicists.
