Discussion

I am greatly interested in this valuable contribution by Dr. Wassell, the more so because he represents a somewhat different school of analytic thought from my own. It is as though, having various views of the same mountain, we each may be able to report an aspect, both of which are essential to a total picture. Accordingly, if what I have to say sometimes seems to be a disagreement, it usually represents a view from a somewhat different angle. We all tend to be so concentrated on our own first-hand observations that we have too little time and understanding for the results of the work of those on the other side. Dr. Wassell asked me, as a Jungian, to discuss it which means, I think that he is really interested in more than one approach. And if I have misinterpreted his ideas, I hope there will be time for correction.

First of all we are deeply in agreement in seeing the analytical process as a human encounter in which the whole person of the analyst must take part, as well as that of the patient. The human reality of the one must speak directly to the human reality of the other. This does not mean, of course, that the analyst should burden the patient with his own affairs and problems, but the whole man, integrated through a long-enough personal analysis to have made conscious and to have assimiliated his major conflicts, should be in the joint enterprise, ready with feeling reactions as well as those of the trained intellect. However, I should add a word of caution here, though I think Dr. Wassell would readily agree with me. When he speaks of “respect and good will” on the part of the analyst I am entirely with him. But when he adds the need for a “deep two-sided emotional experience” in the transference, I should want some careful definition. If he means that there may be a truly moving bilateral life-experience that takes place in the consulting room I fully go along. But that the analyst should get emotionally involved with the patient, that is, should have unc