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Terms related to the notion of mutuality can be traced, dispersed as they may be, in texts dealing with psychoanalytic therapy, starting with Ferenczi's (1988) “mutual analysis” and continuing with ideas of Aron (1991, 1996) and Burke (1992) concerning the symmetry of interpersonal involvement in analysis. “Mutuality” refers to various aspects of symmetry in the analytic relationship, be they elements of interpersonal perception or of emotional involvement. Despite its recurrence in psychoanalytic texts, mutuality in analysis is a problematic notion, primarily due to the inherently asymmetrical nature of the analytic situation (Hadar, 1995). Since analysis is predicated upon asymmetrical properties, the question arises as to whether the pursuit of mutuality would not undermine the analytic enterprise and render it impossible. Or, differently formulated: Do the notion and practice of mutuality have sufficient analytic and therapeutic promise to warrant their pursuit in however measured a fashion, and if so, how? The present article discusses this issue in a theoretical perspective that views the therapeutic relationship as a prime factor in the workings of analysis (Mitchell, 1993) and, moreover, views the analytic relationship as a web of communications that constructs a therapeutic reality by recourse to the specific persons and styles of the therapist and the patient (Hoffman, 1991, 1992).
Mutuality in analysis may evolve in two different, if closely related, domains of the analytic process. One is the clinical surface (Paniagua, 1991) or the overt behaviors, especially communicative behaviors, which appear in the course of analysis. The other concerns the experience of the analytic process or the emotional investment of patient and analyst in the analytic enterprise. Within the former domain, mutuality refers to certain symmetries of communication, which may be identified in the forms of the analytic discourse, and may be modulated by the therapist in a relatively