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September 16, 2000. Cecilio Paniagua exaggerates my wanting “a bit” of the analyst's inner affective experience—just enough so that the rest of us can follow the analytic process. I'm not encouraging “exhibitionistic or masochistic displays,” as he puts it. I thoroughly disagree with his criticism that the kind of open clinical writing I endorse represents “defensive attempts at self-analysis through publishing.” Nor do I agree that the thawing out in Ogden's clinical example involved “seductive self-disclosure.” Paniagua distorts the raw data of the analyst's affective experience in the analytic encounter as if it were only idiosyncratic neurotic material that belongs in “the analyst's personal analysis.”
I would have the analyst at work scrutinize his affective experience, ignoring what is idiosyncratic, so as to draw on the rest as he attempts to understand the psychoanalytic encounter better. I think such work is essential for managing the treatment, especially with more difficult analysands who are intolerant of their feelings. For us to learn how we can be most effective with our more difficult patients, we need to be able to learn from each others' clinical work. That's impossible, if we can't follow “a bit” of what the analyst at work feels. Not exhibitionistic or masochistic revelry, but “a bit” of clinical honesty about the analyst's affective experience will allow us to learn from each other.