As the two of them talked about Harvey's beliefs about the analyst, Harvey, with analytic sophistication, kept reminding the analyst that this whole story, in fact, must have nothing to do with the analyst. It was transference, Harvey insisted...

According to the classical view of the analytic process, Harvey was essentially right...

Classical technique, when practiced with sophistication and skill, does not of course just involve the patient and analyst talking *about* the past. If revisited exclusively through discussion, the patients experience of the past may have an intellectual quality, with the issues remaining abstract and not being deeply felt and relived. Further, Freud found that the most central childhood problems regularly surface not in discussion but in disguised form in the analytic relationship...

Although initially encountering transference as an obstacle, Freud came to feel that the displacement of forbidden impulses and fantasies onto the person of the analyst is essential in helping the patient to experience and work through the issues as lived and deeply felt realities rather than intellectual abstractions and memories...

He was right that ultimately he had displaced his experience of his mother onto the person of the analyst...

Yet Harvey seemed to be using this understanding (correct according to the classical model) for defensive purposes. It was palpably clear that when the analyst would allow Harvey to claim the issue had only to do with his mother, Harvey's anxiety would sharply diminish (along with the analyst's anxiety). In the classical model, the analyst should not move too quickly to the actual, historical context. The experiences *need* to be lived in the present'

"Freud and Beyond" pp. 234-235

So... I guess that is why you can't cure yourself then.

Dammit.