This interview is the first in a series of interviews that will be a regular feature ofPsychoanalytic Dialogues.
Thomas Ogden has been one of the most important and original contributors to
psychoanalytic thought over the past decade. His first book, Projective
Identification and Psychotherapeutic Technique (1982,
Aronson) presented an innovative development and application of the key concept
of projective identification as developed by Klein and Bion. Ogden explored the
ways in which intrapsychic fantasies of the patient become actualized in the
interpersonal field between patient and analyst, especially in work with
schizophrenic patients. The
Matrix of the Mind: Object Relations and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue (1986,
Aronson) traced Ogden's explication and reworking of the basic concepts of the
three major figures of the British school of object relations: Klein, Fairbairn,
and Winnicott. His latest book, The
Primitive Edge of Experience(1989, Aronson), presents Ogden's
own synthesis and development of the central lines of theorizing derived from
the British school and applied to areas such as the structure of experience, the
Oedipus complex, the initial analytic meeting, and the nature of analytic
knowledge Ogden's method has been consistent throughout. Deeply steeped in
psychoanalytic tradition, he continually returns to, reworks, and enriches
classical psychoanalytic concepts by applying to them a modern sensibility
shaped by the contemporary intellectual climate and current clinical
problems.
Practice and Technique.
PD: In your powerful and compelling description of the initial session,
you stress the importance of the analyst's grasping and addressing himself to
the
