Cecilio Paniagua on “Writing Openly”

August 16, 2000. I would like to make a few comments on Stanley J. Coen's “Why We Need to Write Openly about Clinical Cases” ( J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn.  48/2)↗. More precisely, I have some critical remarks concerning ideas expressed in the two sections on “open writing” (pp. 457-464) of this article. Coen stressed the importance of evocative and honest expression of the analyst's clinical counterreactions. He thought it highly desirable that analyst-authors expose their inner affective experiences in their writings, so that the reader would resonate with them. He used as examples excerpts from Thomas H. Ogden's papers. Ogden wrote that he felt “deeply disturbed” by the recognition that one of his patients “was unable to feel anything for me as a human being.” Ogden reflected on a conversation he had had with this patient: “I remembered with great vividness the feeling of attempting to control my voice as I spoke to her in an effort to hold back tears,” adding that he felt “like a spurned lover.” One may feel curiosity or interest about these countertransferential confessions, but don't these really belong in the analyst's personal analysis? In a psychoanalytic publication I would expect to learn about theory, process, technique, clinical developments, and the analyst's average expectable responses to these, but not about his/her idiosyncratic reactions. Shouldn't our voyeurism be sufficiently sublimated as to find unwelcome exhibitionistic or masochistic displays and defensive attempts at self-analysis through publishing?

In Coen's rendition of Ogden's articles, the latter tells his analysand that “he had underestimated both the amount of affection between them and the extent of their relatedness.” Not surprisingly, the patient “responds enthusiastically.” Coen concludes: “As a reader, I feel delighted by this thawing out between the analytic couple.” My reaction was one of dismay that such “thawing” was attained through what sounds like a seductive self-disclosure. C