Building a Bridge Across the Ocean: Commentary on a Dialogue Between Adrienne Harris and David Lichtenstein

This essay is a commentary on the dialogue between Adrienne Harris and David Lichtenstein and aims to address the points of contact and divergence between relational and Lacanian perspectives. As a starting point, I focus on issues that are central to both schools of thought, including (but not limited to) the self as subject, transference and countertransference, the analytic relationship, interpretation, transformation and the goals of treatment, and the question of analytic authority. These areas are discussed with an eye toward understanding the way that theory informs technique and comes alive in the clinical situation ultimately effecting change.