"As Bion (1987) notes in the comment cited at the beginning of this paper, part of becoming an analyst is to evolve in a direction that is neither bound by theory nor driven exclusively by identification with others: "The analyst you become is you and you alone - that is what you use ?" (p. 15). Analytic discourse involves what is unique, idiosyncratic and alive in the particular experience of a given individual. Becoming an analyst necessarily involves creating a highly personal identity that is unlike that of any other analyst. We cannot overstate the difficulty of attempting to live by this ideal. The conscious and unconscious ties that we have to what we think we know are powerful. But the struggle to overcome these ties (at least to a significant degree) is what we ask of ourselves in each session. It has been our experience that, when the analyst is off balance, he does his best analytic work. "
“On Becoming a Psychoanalyst”
International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Apr 2009, Vol. 90, pp. 311-327 by Gabbard, Glen O & Ogden, Thomas H
I wonder if the "conscious and unconscious ties to what we think we know" helps the analyst to feel secure in the treatment. Is there something "counter-transferential" here? Is the analyst afriad of lossing some measure of containment or control in the process? There is incredible risk (shall i say faith?) to surrender to being "off balance." Yet the archetypal element is true in all myth (Abraham leaves Ur into a Canaan wilderness after hearing the call of God) and I suppose, only then, analysis becomes something of an act of "surrender."
ReplyDelete