Full and empty spaces in the analytic process

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8972058
AutoresR J Perelberg (0000-0003-1441-491X, autor de correspondencia)
Año2003
Volumen84
Número3
Páginas579-592
Fecha de publicación2003-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1516/j980-x38u-nkr6-twph
PMID12873362
OpenAlexW4232310991
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas18
Referencias citadas5

In this paper the author discusses two categories of patients which differ in terms of the impact they have in the countertransference. On the one hand, there are patients who create an empty space in the analyst's mind. The response they provoke is a kind of depressive feeling that remains after they leave. The patient may bring dreams and associations, but they do not reverberate in the analyst's mind. The experience is of dryness, a dearth of memory, which may--at times--leave the analyst with a sense of exclusion from the patient's internal world. At the other extreme, there are patients who fill the consulting room. They do that with their words, dreams and associations but also with their emotions and their actions. The experience is that the analyst is over-included in the patient's world. They have dreams that directly refer to the analyst and the analyst feels consistently involved in the patient's analysis. The pathway through which the analyst can understand both these types of patients is via the countertransference or, to put it another way, the analyst's passion. In 'Analysis terminable and interminable' Freud suggested that the bedrock of any analysis is the repudiation of femininity. The author believes this statement may be viewed as lying at the crossroads of the discussion about the limits of the theoretical and clinical psychoanalytic formulations which she refers to. In the examples presented the author relates the repudiation of femininity in its connections to the gaps implicit in psychoanalytic understanding

Countertransference · Epistemology · Feeling · Femininity · Passion · Projective identification · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Statement (logic · Transference · Working through · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis and Social Critique · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Social Psychology