Scand. Psychoanal. Rev.

(2007) 30, 76 - 83

Copyright 2007 THE SCANDINAVIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW ISSN 0106-2301

relational-oriented character analysis

a position in contemporary psychoanalysis*
Bjrn Killingmo

Referring to the diversity of psychoanalysis of today, a position called relational-oriented character analysis is discussed. It is stated that relation and character as concepts refer to different and partly contradictory points of view in psychoanalysis, the first one emphasising mobile, dynamic aspects of personality, the second underlining stable, structural aspects. The principle aim of the article is to argue how the two perspectives can be theoretically combined in an overriding object-relational (two-person) conception and to discuss some implications for analytic technique. Finally, convergences and differences with other positions or schools in contemporary psychoanalysis are suggested. Key words: object relation character psychoanalytic technique schools of contemporary psychoanalysis.

in this article, i shall discuss a position in contemporary psychoanalysis which is called relational-oriented character analysis (Gullestad & Killingmo, 2005). By calling it a position, i allude to selecting some concepts and giving them priority as compared with other concepts in the theory. these concepts i shall call the favourite concepts of the analyst. More than other concepts, they will influence how the analyst perceives and organises the clinical material, and they put their stamp on the analytic attitude and technical details as well. in the position to be discussed here, the two concepts relation and character have been lifted up and assigned such favourite status. these concepts belong to different psychoanalytic traditions or schools of thought, and in some ways, they stand in contrast to each other. Basically, the concept of relation signifies mobile and dynamic aspects of personality, while the concept of character points to more stable and
* the article is a revised version of a paper in Norwegian published in Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening (2007) 44: 125-131.

unchangeable aspects. Can we combine these two ways of thinking into one consistent theory, and what consequences will a unified perspective have for the clinical work of the analyst? these are the main questions to be discussed in this article. in what follows, i shall start by describing the two concepts separately. i will discuss how they can be theoretically combined. then, i shall enlarge upon some consequences for analytic attitude and technique. Finally, i shall suggest convergences and differences between relational-oriented character analysis and some other schools in the pluralistic landscape of contemporary psychoanalysis.

CHaraCtEr

in a classical article, rapaport (1951) makes a profound statement: Without an orientation toward and without technical skill in the understanding of psychic structure, the knowledge of drives and conflicts cannot give a rounded picture of personality. a

psychological theory in terms of energy distributions, lacking structural concepts, does not make a psychology (p. 361). in the context of psychoanalytic treatment, this means that the psychoanalyst, in his theory and his technique as well, has to consider both the mobile and the more stable aspects of the personality of the patient. as to the psychoanalytic position to be discussed in this article, the statement of rapaport is fundamental. Character is close to the prototype of a structural concept. Calling a certain psychological phenomenon a structure or saying that it is structuralised, implies that it is relatively stable. Changes take place slowly. in addition, a structure is marked by being relatively free of conflict tension and peremptory affect. By this, many psychic phenomena, being structuralised, come forward as tools being available to the individual, regardless of time and situation. language and defence mechanisms speak for that. By talking of a persons character, we are referring to a relatively stable pattern including different aspects of the personality, like self representation, relational style, ways of thinking, regulation of affects and general manner of behaviour. thus, the concept of character signifies a global unit of observation. Character, as a concept, is traditionally anchored within normal personality theory. However, clinical experience tells us that it may serve as a helpful concept in understanding psychopathology and in therapeutic contexts as well. Every clinician can testify how moveable and changing the patient can be. Narratives and affects change from one session to the next. Even within the single session, an oscillation from one extreme to the opposite may take place. From one point of view we can say that every session is a new happening. However, from another point of view, we can be surprised by how unchangeable the patient can be. Certainly, new narratives emerge, and the content of older narratives is deepened. However, in style, language and general ways of relating to others, the patient is one and the same from session to session. Especially in psychoanalyses and therapies of long duration, this comes to the fore. in contrast to the changeable, the patient can, to a surprising degree, remain unchanged, endlessly repeating the same pattern. Exact observations like these are picked up by the concept of character and demonstrate how useful the concept is. Freud himself did not work out this side of the clinical material in detail. His main perspective was a dynamic one. taking unconscious drive wishes as his vantage point, he studied how they, in a condensed, displaced, disguised and symbolised way, expressed themselves in symptoms, dreams and free associations.

this perspective on the clinical material could be likened to solving riddles or by bringing the bits in a puzzle into their right place. according to theodor reik, a happening that took place in the Psychoanalytic Society of Vienna in the thirties can illustrate the preferences of Freud. one of the young analysts had discussed problems connected with treatment of the character. obviously this represented a widening scope compared to what was usually accepted as analytic material. after the speech, Freud was asked his opinion. Freud answered that he himself had taken interest in more limited areas, but that he agreed to new generations of analysts exploring broader horizons. in his own words: Myself, i have always been sailing on lakes, but i wish good luck to those who dare to embark on the open sea (see, Sjbck & Westerlundh, 1977, p. 22). the one, who has to be honoured for bringing the concept of character to the fore and who has made it a focus in analytic technique, is reich (1933). Fenichel (1941) and Schjelderup (1941) in Norway have also underlined the importance of including character formations in the analytic work. as i see it, the perspective of character includes three basic implications for psychoanalytic theory and technique. 1. derivatives of infantile conflicts and deprivations find their expressions as much in the personality as a whole, as in limited symptoms. thus, the analyst cannot omit tracing and confronting aspects of character if deeper structural changes are to be expected. 2. the character can act as a defensive measure against drive impulses and other peremptory needs. in an extreme form, the character structure can be like an impenetrable shield blocking any experience of affect. the analytic dialogue will then be nothing but an intellectual discourse, and the patient pays a high prize as a prisoner in his self-made jail. 3. the character can function as resistance in the analytic process. Being ego-syntonic and released automatically, character traits will easily become effective brakes in the analytic process and in the emotional attachment to the analyst. the character traits express themselves in formal aspects of the personality, and they are present all the time. Nevertheless, they are not that easy to observe. the content of the histories, associations and fantasies of the patient tend to occupy the attention of the

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analyst. as listeners, we may unnoticeably be hidden in the story of today. the narrative aspects of the material are in the foreground, the structural aspects in the background. they are not so spectacular. they are weaved into the fine-meshed control systems of the ego, and have to be extracted from the patients way of perception, his affective expression, his manner of thinking and communication, his facial look and his bodily postures as well. the analyst has to take a more laid-back observational position so that the minor structural formations become visible to him. He has to resist the fascination of the story, so to speak, in order to get hold of the subtle formal elements, whereafter, by way of abstraction, he has to raise the implicit organisational structure. We can conclude that in order to practice according to a character-analytic understanding, the listening perspective of the analyst has to be broad and at the same time tuned in towards the most subtle nuances in the patients language and style (Gullestad & Killingmo, 2002).

as relatively stable patterns (scenarios), putting their stamps on the persons social behaviour and his ways of relating to others. the concept of relational scenario may be helpful as a unit of interpretation in clinical work. 3. By assigning the self-object scenario a central place in the theory, the concept of the self also gains a prominent place. the self is considered in two contexts, one as a theoretical concept expressing the individuals inner representations of himself, the other as a subjectively experiencing self. Both will be the target of analytic interpretations. 4. the child will internalise the relationships he has experienced between himself and his primary objects and form inner infantile scenarios. Psychopathology can best be understood and formulated in terms of disturbed internalised relational experiences. the experiences of the child are internalised as they are seen with the eyes of the child, and stored in terms of his language and understanding of causality. later on, they are reorganised and nachtrglich interpreted, and can no longer be recalled in their earliest form and expressed in the language and concepts of the adult. the infantile scenarios remain operating as a kind of urscenarios in the background behind the relational patterns of the adult. in the analytic setting, derivatives of the infantile scenarios are emotionally activated and transferred to the analyst and the analytic scenario. However, even if the primary objects are acting as the models, the internalised representations are not copies. they are interpreted versions loaded with the fantasies of the child. From this point of view, we can better understand why the object representations of the infantile scenarios often are so demonic, annihilating and merciless. the above points can be summarised in this way. Whatever the patient is bringing to the fore in the analytic setting, an association, a dream, an affect, a memory or the way he speaks and relates to the analyst, every aspect of the material is part of an unconscious relational scenario with infantile roots. in this context, the patient is not to be regarded as a passive victim, but as an active agent who, by way of subtle manoeuvres, tries to make the analyst a partner in a relational scenario from the past. the patient acts as a director, creating his own rle in the drama and that of the analyst as well. Certainly, the patient may have been a victim in the past, but in the therapeutic scenario, he acts as a strategist. in this dynamic between the two parts, the

rElatioN

in what follows, i shall use relation as synonymous to object relation. Probably, most psychoanalysts of today will adhere to object-relation theory, in one version or the other. However, as a commonly accepted definition is not available, i shall concentrate on four points of view which are basic in the concept of object relation that are relevant in the present context. 1. all meaningful psychological phenomena in the human individual are connected to or embedded in conceptions of an object. this point of view is precisely formulated by Freud: in the individuals mental life, someone else is invariably involved (Freud, 1921, p. 69). Every single drive wish, relational need or thought is directed toward an other human being, anticipating a certain answer from the other one. Furthermore, within the individual, dialogues continually take place with inner objects consciously or unconsciously. in human dialogues, affects play an active rle. affects signify the tensions in the individuals relationship to the object. thus, affect comes to the fore as a motive of the first order, overriding other dynamic factors. 2. the concepts of self and object do not refer to outer observation, but to inner representations of the self, the object and the relationship between them. these inner representations can be organised

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analytic work aims at having the patient experience how he unconsciously contributes so that his own pattern of suffering remains unchanged.

CoNNECtiNG tWo liNES oF tHoUGHt

the concepts of character and relation bear witness to different lines of thought. the first one picks up the more stable aspects of personality, called structures, while the other calls attention to the mobile aspects, by rapaport called the energies. i shall now discuss how the two can be theoretically connected. Firstly it has to be ascertained that the two do not have an equal right, even if they are put together under one heading. the aim is to adapt the concept of structure to the concept of relation. thus, relation is placed ahead of character, signalling that the object-relational perspective is the overriding one. obviously, this is a deviation from the perspective of Freud. the fundamental idea of Freud is that unconscious drives form the starting point of all meaningful psychic activity. the origin of the drives is within the individual, and in the first place, they are independent of the relational experiences of the individual. in the conception of Freud, the drives are from the beginning opposed to culture. this idea is the point of departure of classical oneperson psychology. in essence, object relation theory queries this idea. First of all, object relation theory takes as its point of departure that the human infant, from the very beginning, is directed toward another human as an object. Secondly, many psychoanalysts of today are of the opinion that the drives cannot be seen as isolated from early object experiences. the concept of drive expresses the imperative qualities in human wishes and desires, but in its own right, it is nothing but a hypothetical conception, inserted between the somatic and the psychological domains. drives can only be observed by way of affects and representations which are inextricably linked to object experiences. these object experiences, having both a content and a form, are internalised as inner representations constituting motivational units of personality. in the wake of the theory of object relations, the unit of analysis has shifted from id-ego conflicts to selfobject relations. Psychoanalysis has taken the plunge from a one-person to a two-person psychology. this does not mean that the time-honoured concepts of id, ego and superego, have to disappear from the vocabulary of psychoanalysis. However, it does mean that we have to consider that all three instances have their

origin in early relational experiences and that intrapsychic conflict as well has to be understood in a widening scope. the concept of conflict is about one kind of self-object relations being opposed to another kind of self-object relations. We have to think in terms of self-object relations both on the impulsive side and the defensive side of the conflict. By way of this reformulation, the classical paradigm of conflict is transformed to an overriding relational one. the peremptory and vigorous qualities of sexuality and aggression can easily be expressed in terms of the content and the affective charge of the relational scenario, while the structural aspects are attended to by their form and organisation. the language of object relations can express all kinds of conflicts, oedipal as well as those related to dependency and separation. Besides, this language seems especially fitted to a description of states of suffering having roots in early object deprivation and lack of affirmation from empathic objects (Killingmo, 2006). above all, the reformulation makes it possible to combine relational and structural thinking in one consistent theoretical language. indeed, historically, the concept of character is embedded in a one-person perspective. in the conception of reich (1933), defensive character traits are more like static mental end-products without implicit object-directed intentions. their function was to ward off impulsive pressure and to maintain intrapsychic balance. therefore, in clinical practice, the notion of relational strategies are to be preferred. a strategy can be defined as an internalised way of negotiation with the object which the child has experienced as the most useful in order to obtain something or to avoid something. relational strategies can be relatively rigid and generalised and thus serve both as defences and as resistances, on a par with character traits. However, in addition, a strategy has a built-in intentional message to the object. thus, the concept of strategy is more relational and dynamic than that of character. How does the psychoanalytic position described above tally with the essence of classical Freudian theory? Under the heading of The cornerstones of psychoanalytic theory, Freud (1923, p. 247) stated: the assumption that there are unconscious mental processes, the recognition of the theory of resistance and repression, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the oedipus complex these constitute the principle subjectmatter of psychoanalysis and the foundations of its theory. No one who cannot accept them all should count himself a psychoanalyst.

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relational-oriented character analysis does not deviate from any of these conditions. the relational position aims at incorporating the classical stock of ideas in an overriding object-relational perspective. in the present time of pluralism, i think that all positions or schools of thought calling themselves psychoanalytic, should clarify their kinship to Freuds formulation. if the ties of blood are too thin, they should consider whether psychoanalysis is the right name.

CliNiCal iMPliCatioNS

i shall now turn to some clinical implications of the theoretical position described in the preceding. in what way does it influence the focus of the analyst and how he handles the clinical material? a general comment should be inserted here. in spite of theoretical disagreement, different schools of psychoanalysis may apply the same technical measures. thus, there is no strict one-to- one relationship between theory and technique. the technical devices described below have in common that they provide conceptual space for combining the relational perspective and the character perspective. they can be stated as five principles: 1. Focus on hereand- now, 2. Focus on the surface, 3. Focus on resistance, 4. Focus on the negative, 5. Focus on form.

Focus on here and now the most adjacent question the analyst has to put to himself is: What do the patients feel here and now, and what do i feel myself ? as stated already, the affective mode constitutes the instant motivational system in object relationships. the listening perspective of the analyst has to be tuned towards the present feeling state of the patient. if not, the analyst risks starting a dialogue that does not tally with what is emotionally important to the patient. the self-representation of the patient is not affectively involved, and the dialogue will not be meaningful to him in a deeper sense. in order to capture the present feeling state of the patient, the analyst has to take up a waiting attitude, sinking into himself, and from this position, listen for the emotional qualities transmitted through the vocal pitch, the intonation in the patients manner of speaking, his breath and bodily posture as well. Even if the narrative of the patient has a dramatic tinge, the analyst should hesitate to act immediately upon this. in any case, the relationship to the analyst is more here-and-now than the content of the story of today. all the narratives are strained through the filter of transference.

in this context, it may be helpful to distinguish between the affect which is part of the content of the narrative and the affect that is actualised here and now in the relationship of the patient to the analyst. the first one can be referred to as structuralised affect, the other as transference affect. the structuralised affect is affect which is already coded in the language and narrative context. in contrast to that, the transference affect has not yet been verbalised and organised in a context. When the analyst focusses on the transference affect, he gets into direct touch with emotional qualities descending from relational scenarios from the patients past. the dialogue then moves ahead by its inherent tension. Neither the patient, nor the analyst know the next step. Both are in an open space. it may be a challenging experience to the analyst to stay unprotected in the transference tension. Certainly, there is no rule stating that the analyst should operate exclusively in this affective mode. But, if the analyst never focusses on the transference tension directly, the analysis may end as a joint reconstruction of a life history, without having activated emotional qualities from the infantile scenarios, and the analysis will be structurally more superficial and experientially shallow. the analyst should also ask himself: what kind of object do i represent to the patient here and now, and what kind of scenario does he unconsciously try to involve me in? By means of subtle strategies, the patient applies a pressure on the analyst to have him act according to his needs. these strategies have to be disclosed and interpreted. Without having this perspective present and without using his immediate countertransference as a source of information, the analyst may easily be seduced to participate in a play where the patient has the upper hand, and the analyst has lost his analytic position.

Focus on the surface this principle is on a par with the recommendation of Freud to start from the prevailing surface, die jeweilige Oberflche. However, it may be a problem to decide what element in the manifest material that is most at the surface. the outstanding voice of the patient, the voice we all can hear, is easy to spot. But patients mostly speak with different voices at the same time, some more low-voiced, some hardly audible and some, not yet formulated. Nevertheless, they are all there at the surface. Such a metaphor of voices can be helpful. it reminds the analyst that his way of listening has to be one of widening scope and sensitivity. all the voices should have a fair chance to be heard. a short clinical vignette may illustrate this:

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the patient arrives out of breath to his session, throws himself on the couch and bursts out: i am always in a hurry. after a while he continues: i had decided not be late today. We spoke about it yesterday. i noticed that you didnt like that i was late. Here, the last sentence represents the outstanding voice, the one dominating the surface. an apt comment from the analyst might have been: You probably think that i was irritated at you. through this intervention, the analyst tries to determine what kind of object representation the patient is unconsciously transferring to him. Possibly, an infantile scenario of disobedience and fear of punishment would have been actualised in the transference. However, the analyst might have chosen another interpretive line as well. He could have brought another voice to the fore, and this is exactly what the analyst did in this case. He said: You started the session today by telling me that you are always in a hurry. the analyst goes backwards. Starting with the start, he gives priority to the formulation hurry. He takes the self-description of the patient as a more comprehensive experiential state than the story of today. it is about a person that never calms down. the experiential state of hurry is more on the surface than the coming- too-late theme, because it is always present. therefore it is the first to be addressed. Whether this was the most productive intervention there and then, i shall not discuss here. But the vignette illustrates the principle of starting from the surface in order to grasp the material in its widest context. Besides, by this intervention, the analyst notes that he has not got involved in the style of hurry, which the patient unconsciously may have wanted in order to take control of the relationship. Starting from the surface also implies that the analytic process moves toward deeper layers, step by step, with the analyst following tactfully behind. this manner of approach is contrary to the old Kleinian way of confronting archaic material directly, omitting the stratification of conflicts in different layers and patterns of transference. in order to digest the interpretations, the patient should have a fair chance of following them step-by-step, both emotionally and cognitively. to obtain this, the analyst has to make clear to the patient what observations support his interpretations.

progress. a number of phenomena occurring in the therapeutic relationship, transference for one, can act as resistance. of special importance are the organised solutions which the patient has developed through his development to keep himself together and to defend himself against overwhelming and threatening experiences (Sandler & Sandler, 1994, p, 436). From this point of view, there will always be elements of reservation in every patient against giving himself up to the analyst and the analytic process. the analyst has to continuously address these organised solutions, called structuralised resistance (Killingmo, 2001). Pointing out and interpreting structuralised resistance are distinctive features of the analytic position i am discussing here. However, it should be emphsasized that this pointing out is not like the technique associated with reich. For him, character resistance was like a fortification that had to be broken down. By using the concept of strategy instead, resistance is included in a dynamic context. to be sure, strategies may operate as resistances in the analytic work. at the same time, they are charged with relational content. thus, these resistances can be seen as persistent messages from the unconscious of the patient, and this challenge has to be sensitively received by the analyst, often for a long time, till the patient himself can hear the call embedded in his own style. in this context, resistance is not to be seen as an impersonal mechanism; in addition, pointing out adopts a softer sound than that usually associated with this kind of intervention.

Focus on resistance in the psychoanalytic theory of therapy, the concept of resistance refers to factors interfering with analytic

Focus on the negative in the analytic process, the analyst is inevitably involved in the patients internalised relationships with his primary objects. Unconsciously, the patient is transferring emotional qualities derived from the inner mother and the inner father onto the analyst. these infantile scenarios are mostly ambivalent relationships, charged with love and aggression at the same time. this emotional complexity justifies that the analyst is especially directed toward the negative aspects, the aggression from the inner objects on the one hand, the patients own protest and hatred against the same objects on the other. it is of vital importance to analytic progress that the patients latent conception of the analyst as a critical, devaluating and moralising object, is captured and interpreted. if these negative attitudes are not analysed, they may easily be covered up by an idealising defensive transference. through this, the analytic process does not get at the infantile qualities in the patients feelings, neither his fear, nor his rage.

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Focus on form to analyse form does not represent a new perspective in psychoanalysis. Fenichel (1941) advised the analyst to analyse the ego aspect of the material before analysing the id aspect. Generally, the form makes up the frontline of the self toward the object. By way of form, the ego regulates the relationship between self-representation and object-representation. Furthermore, in the analytic session, the patient immediately regulates his emotional relationship to the analyst by way of form. thus, from the perspective of character, the analyst has to maintain focus on form in all its variations. in the therapeutic dialogue, affect is a driving force in the first place, but the dialogue can easily run dry. By losing the connection to affective meaning, it may end up as an intellectual discourse about feelings, without anything felt at all. in this connection, it may be helpful for the analyst to focus on the linguistic form of the patient. i shall provide two examples. Many analysts will recognize the patient speaking of my anxiety, my aggression, my self-destructiveness and so on. He does not say: i am scared, i am angry, i criticise myself. By speaking in terms of substantives, the patient takes an inner position of an observer to his own feelings. the self, as a feeling subject, is withdrawn from the language and the words, and the experience of affect disappears. What is left is nothing but categories of emotion. if the analyst responds to the patient by talking of your anxiety, your aggression and so on, the two may unconsciously have entered into an agreement of keeping feelings away from the dialogue. another example is the patient who is instantly inserting small words and empty phrases, in a way, as far as, namely, etc., in his manner of speaking. they act like steps out of the natural course of meaning, leaving psychological gaps in the text. thereby, continuity is broken and affect is separated from cognitive representation. the above examples illustrate how a mechanism of isolation can be weaved into language, forming a permanent style.

diFFErENt PSYCHoaNalYtiC PoSitioNS

in the preceding, i have discussed five statements concerning psychoanalytic technique. Many analysts will agree to these in principle, and some will work along more-or-less the same lines, in their clinical practice. However, owing to historical background, the character analytic perspective seems to have put its stamp on the

psychoanalytic climate in Norway distinctively more than it has in the other Scandinavian countries. in what follows, i will briefly comment on convergences and disagreements between relational-oriented character analyses, which i shall call new character analysis, and other positions or schools in the manifold landscape of present-day psychoanalysis. First of all, the new character analysis has central features in common with The contemporary Freudian approach in London (Sandler & Sandler, 1998), and the so-called egopsychological object-relation theory (Kernberg, 2004). the ideas of Sandler (1976) concerning unconscious rle assignment, rle responsiveness and actualisation in the transference counter-transference relationship, are included in the concept of relational scenario. However, the new character analysis seems to attach more importance than Sandler to the interpretation of ego-syntonic defences and to point out structuralised resistances. the new character analysis is on a par with Kernberg as the concept of drive is concerned. drives cannot be seen as inner forces being independent of object experiences. like Kernberg, character analysis considers sexuality and aggression as powerful motivational systems. But in addition, character analysis considers relational needs as a motivational system in its own right, separate from drives. the relational needs make themselves felt in the analytic process through the patients attempts to draw the analyst into specific scenarios of dependence, affirmation and attachment. However, in clinical practice, all the main motivational systems will, more-or- less, operate jointly woven into one another. With classical Kleinian theory and technique, there are hardly any common elements except that of internalising a stable and benign inner object. With regard to the so called Contemporary Kleinians of London (Schafer, 1997), there are obviously a number of common features, such as analysis of the here-and-now, analysis of the total transference (Joseph, 1985) and analysis of structuralised patterns called pathological organisations(Steiner, 1985). the new character analysis and the positions calling themselves relational psychoanalysis have a common base in the idea of mutual interaction between the patient and the analyst. the notion of the analyst as an independent observer cannot be accepted. However, character analysis delimits itself sharply toward the extreme position of intersubjectivity, maintaining that it is both possible and necessary for the analyst to be present in the relationship as an observer, at the same time being a participant in the dynamics of transference and counter- transference. through self-reflection, the analyst can gain sufficient observational distance to sort out and to interpret the

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patients attempts to take control of the relationship (Gullestad & Killingmo, 2005). in the new character analysis, the concept of self has taken up a more advanced position than has been common in classical psychoanalysis. the analyst closely monitors the subjective experience of the patient. Here, character analysis is on a par with the school of self-psychology. Problems connected with self-representation are often brought to the fore in the sessions, and the self-feeling of the patient, his inner picture of himself and his existential feeling of being, are continually included in the listening perspective of the analyst. if the self-state of the patient becomes fragmented and dominated by lack of meaningfulness, the analyst has to shift from an interpretive to an affirmative strategy (Killingmo, 1995, 2006). a decisive difference between self-psychology and character analysis seems to be that the latter gives higher priority than the first to the interpretation of internalised aggressive object relationships, and points out how they are expressed in negative transference.

CoNClUSioN

i started by quoting rapaport (1951), stating that a theory of personality pleading to be complete, has to have concepts dealing with dynamic aspects of psychic phenomena as well as concepts dealing with structural phenomena. i have tried to bring this point of view a step further by connecting relation and character theoretically in a language of object relations. Within this background, relation-oriented character analysis is an analytic practice especially focussing on the patients internalised and organized relational strategies operating between self-representation and object representation as they are unfolding in the dynamics of transference and counter-transference in the therapeutic dialog. Whether this analytic practice is delimited to a degree so that it deserves a separate name, or whether it is to be seen as a more cursory placing together of elements from different schools of thought, is open to discussion. in any case, the leading idea in this paper has been to integrate the stable into the mobile.

(1923 a) [1922]. two encyclopedia articles. S.E. 18, 235-259. Gullestad, S. E. & Killingmo, B. (2002). dybdeintervjuet. dialogen bak dialogen.(the depth interview. the dialogue beyond the dialogue.) in: Von der lippe, a.l. & rnnestad, M.H. (eds.). Det kliniske intervju. (The clinical interview). oslo: Gyldendal akademiske forlag, 123-147. (2005). Underteksten. Psykoanalytisk terapi i praksis. (The text beyond. Psychoanalytic therapy in pratice.) oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Joseph, B. (1985). transference: the total situation. Int. J. Psychoanal., 66: 447-454. Kernberg, o. F. (2004). Contemporary controversies in psychoanalytic theory, techniques, and their applications. New Haven and london: Yale Universitiy Press. Killingmo, B. (1995). affirmation in psychoanalysis. Int. J. Psychoanal., 76: 503-518. (2001). trenger vi strukturbegreper? Egopsykologi i nytt hus. (do we need structural concepts? Egopsychology in a new house). Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, 38: 1030-1041. (2006): a plea for affirmation. relating to states of unmentalised affects. Scan. Psychoanal. Rev., 29: 13-21. rapaport, d. (1951). the autonomy of the ego. in: Gill, M.M. (ed.). The collected papers of David Rapaport. New York: Basic Books. reich, W. (1933). Character-analysis. New York: orgone institute Press, 1949. Sandler, J. (1976). Countertransference and role-responsiveness. Int. Rev. Psychoanal., 3: 43-47. Sandler, J. & Sandler, a.-M. (1994). theoretical and technical comments on regression and anti-regression. Int. J. Psychoanal., 75: 431-441. Sandler, a.-M. & Sandler, J. (1998). Internal objects revisited. london: Karnac. Schafer, r. (ed.) (1997). The contemporary Kleinians of London. Madison: international Universities Press. Schjelderup, H. (1941). Nevrosene og den nevrotiske karakter. (The neuroses and the neurotic charter). oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1988. Sjbck, H. & Westerlundh, B. (1977). Sigmund Freud. Liv och personlighet. gonvittnen beratter. (Sigmund Freud, life and personality. Witnesses tell their story.) Cavefors Bokfrlag aB. Steiner, J. (1985). the interplay between pathological organizations and the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. in: Schafer, r. (ed.) (1997). The contemporary Kleinians of London. Madison: international Universities Press.

rEFErENCES
Fenichel, o. (1941). Problems of psychoanalytict technique. New York: the Psychoanal. Quart. inc. Freud, S. (1921). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. S.E. 18, 69-143.

Bjrn Killingmo Skyensvingen 12 o375 oslo Norway e-mail: bjorn.killingmo@psykologi.uio.no

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