Deeper, Wider: Some Comments on the Gill/Bromberg Correspondence

The letters compose an interesting historical and theoretical exchange (1979-83). It strikes me that, rather than converging on the issue, they were passing in the night. Gill, a very informed Freud scholar, was moving away from his doctrinaire position, shifting his percepts of transference from a containment to a more fluid and vital interaction but still valiantly making an effort to integrate the classic and interpersonal position. Bromberg was moving in an entirely different direction. Gill remained rooted in the linked concepts of repression/regression: Bromberg fostered the concept of dissociation. They were talking across a paradigmatic gap.