Containment, affirmation and structural deficiency – revisiting an issue in psychoanalytic method

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of Freudian analysis was to recover repressed memories, phantasies and wishes and make them conscious. This was the basic principle of analytic cure, and the means was interpretation. During the last 5–6 decades, analytic method has been supplemented by types of interventions addressing the relationship between therapist and patient. New kinds of intervention aim at adapting to the patient’s developmental level and capacity to profit from interpretations. These interventions seek to establish (new) meaning, not to uncover hidden meaning. A special point concerns a combined type, where an interpretation is wrapped in an affirmative form. The authors discuss this development and focus on the concepts of containment (Bion) and affirmation (Killingmo). They are developed from different models, but in spite of this, their aims seem to be similar; to remove doubts about the experience of reality and establish new meaning, thus preparing the way for interpretation of unconscious material. Two clinical vignettes illustrate some of the challenges facing the analyst in dealing with these dynamics.