This volume consists of a series of essays inspired by Freud's paper on Jensen's novel Gradiva - "she who steps along." In the story a young archaeologist, Norbert Hanold, suffers from delusions but is able to unravel the mysteries of his emotional life and mind with the aid of a woman who does not challenge these delusions, but rather "steps along" with Hanold, gradually helping him to disentangle truth from fantasy, through what Freud called "cure by love". Gradiva, originally felt to be the source of Hanold's malady, eventually becomes the agent of its resolution and of his return to health. This extraordinary tale formed the basis for the author's concept of "taking the transference". Through clinical vignettes, various aspects of psychoanalytic technique - useful from the first encounter between patient and analyst and throughout the process of the development of mind to termination - are illustrated in detail.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSABOUT THE AUTHORFOREWORD by Neville SymingtonINTRODUCTIONCHAPTER ONE Listening for the emergence of infantile dependencyCHAPTER TWO "A rose by any other name": working analytically in the face of authoritative statementsCHAPTER THREE Some technical implications of Klein's concept of "premature ego development"CHAPTER FOUR Taking the transference: some technical implications from three papers by Wilfred BionCHAPTER FIVE Excogitating Bion's Cogitations: further implications for techniqueCHAPTER SIX The past presented: bodily centered protections in puberty and adolescenceCHAPTER SEVEN "Trying to Enter The Long Black Branches": some technical extensions for the analysis of autistic states in adults from the work of Frances TustinCHAPTER EIGHT Minding the gap between neuroscientific and psychoanalytic understanding of autismCHAPTER NINE Surviving unthinkable trauma: dissociation, delusion, and hallucination in Life of PiREFERENCESINDEX