Although some relational psychoanalysts are to commended for wanting to go beyond the simplistic models of ego psychology, the idea that some of them put forward about the unconscious being created in the analytical meeting is silly.
Often they are altruists who don't want to make other intellectuals feel bad and therefore humble their position so that it doesn't upset the understanding of others.
However, once one accepts that the analyst is just one potential father-substitute in the patients life and that he or she may have transference with another and that may be occupying some of their time in the session, the question arises as to why interpretation can't be made regarding that transference?
In an ego psychology model, the view is that the transference relationship is needed with the analyst so that the rational ego can begin to see how it's repeating and hold itself back. The patient gets to see the transference in the room and repeated interpretations by the analyst will strengthen it.
I have a patient who is having a nice defused antigone complex, or subject altruist castration complex. There is a woman in my patient's building who is physically disabled and has nurse assistants who come to her home to assist her with her basic needs. My patient presents the triangle that the nurse assistant is showing up late, not doing her job as well as she should, and she will have anxiety for the disabled woman's well-being as well as resentment towards the nurse's assistant. My patient feels like she is the real caretaker and that the assistant should give her some of the money she makes and that the assistant is generally not doing her job. Of course she doesn't say any of these things to he nursing assistant but will bottle them up until she explodes (except for the satisfaction of complaining to the disabled person about the assistant). Soon the past begins to naturally arise in the conversation. The patient used to "raise" her brothers and sisters and they considered her to be parental figure. However, there was a point in her teenage years when her mother "tried to take back the power" when she hadn't been there as a parent for years.
When one is presented with present and past like this a few times, isn't the situation becoming ripe for analytic action?
Also, isn't the end point having the patient being able to re-fuse with the father-substitute and therefore to clear up the emotional resistance to this? The patient has to process the narcissistic/echoistic injury that causes the defusion and whether it regards the repetition in the transference or out of the transference to be there as a witness to the pain and mourning will set the analyst up as a new father-substitute that can be fused with.
In this case, instead of the patient getting involved in a triangle if the nursing assistant couldn't be a father-substitute who handled the situation then she should have made the relevant calls and trusted in another father-substitute to do the work. Her loyalty to her disabled friend shouldn't so completely overshadow her 'self-loyalty' in giving her own pursuits the time they deserve.
*** a quick note. Not every relationalist is an altruist, just like not every liberal is an altruist. An egoist can also identify with the school because of it being portrayed as the dominant model in his training institute or from what he gleans from the journals or the general psychoanalytic community.
My point is that rather than the psychoanalytic models or ideas expanding to conquer other disciplines, it appears like they became effaced in order to accept them.
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