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If we are asked by what methods and means this result is achieved, it is not easy to find an answer. We can only say: So muss denn doch die Hexe dran!—the Witch Metapsychology. Without metapsychological speculation and theorizing—I had almost said “phantasying”—we shall not get another step forward. Unfortunately, here as elsewhere, what our Witch reveals is neither very clear nor very detailed.
So then there is no help save from the witch.
Michael Basch appreciated psychoanalytic theory. His deep commitment, especially to Freud's theoretical developments, showed itself in a series of brilliant conceptual papers (Basch, 1975, 1976a, 1976b, 1976c, 1977, 1981, 1983a, 1983b, 1985, 1991). In a penetrating but understated way he applied his understanding developed from the study of theory to psychotherapy (Basch, 1980, 1990, 1992).
Basch's understanding of theory shone in the classroom. He often spoke about analytic theory with such clarity that ideas, which in other hands were complex to the point of near incomprehensibility, appeared clear and simple. Just as he understood that wisdom imparted in psychotherapy could not be used until and unless patients made those ideas their own, so too he understood that students could not learn passively. No matter how clearly a teacher understandings and expresses ideas, until students actively struggle with the ideas, turn them over in their own minds, play with and through the idea, it has little value. Until students bring the new idea into relationship with their own thinking, they have not really learned.