ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the derivative complex and its central element: the selected encoded perceptions of the therapist in light of his or her interventions. As psychotherapists know, there are four classes of interventions: silence, ground rules, interpretations, and non-interpretive interventions. Though there are implications of interventions in respect to the ground rules and setting of therapy much depends on the therapist's clear understanding of the nature and functions of this critical dimension. In short, when psychotherapists have identified a dimension of human experience being worked over by the patient in the therapeutic interaction, the material should be subjected to exploration for indicators, adaptive contexts, and derivative complex. The final segment of the material, which refers to the patient's inability to work, the patient's ridiculous comments, the scattering of the patient's efforts, and so forth, touches again upon issues of narcissism and identity, prompted by the therapist's failed interventions.
