Abstract: This article starts from observing the fact that there are similar clinical phenomena described in different psychoanalytic “theoretical languages” by authors belonging to different orientations. Concepts of projective identification and identification with the aggressor are provided as examples, their clinical description having a common core, also found in other notions, such as those of paradoxical system (M. de M’Uzan) or transference by reversal (R. Roussillon). The article’s title renders the idea that by listening to discourses in different psychoanalytic languages with a “third ear”, you can hear a part of common ground, emerging from the common clinical experience (Wallerstein) based upon the common method and setting (Green). In the case of the concepts mentioned, the common core takes shape through terms that designate psychic phenomena highlighted by means of countertransference; they involve reversal or inversion between passive and active, between subject and object, as well as transitionality between act and representation.


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