Bernstein: Response to Rudnytsky

Dear Peter,

It has been interesting and clarifying to be able to join you in dialogue about Judy Kantrowitz's book. I think that our varying responses to this text are related to the contexts in which we are immersed.

The author sees herself as a participant observer in a research project. I agree that she is trying to be a neutral observer and analyst, but I think that she is also trying to create a safe environment in which the analysts with whom she is speaking will be better able to reveal themselves. She feels, I think, that there is no single answer to this problem, and that as analysts we need to try to be aware of our conflicts about such writing, look at the opposite poles of our inclinations, ask for consultation when necessary, and struggle to find an answer for each particular situation. While you feel she has not gone deep enough, I feel that she is not after “deep” but that she is after “deepening,” in a clinical sense. While you seem to be looking for something more definitive, such as the development of a new ethics for psychoanalysis, I think she is looking for a process for dealing individually with a very difficult set of questions.

You have a unique perspective on the issue of clinical writing as the editor of American Imago, the journal in which Philip Roth's analyst betrayed him by writing about Roth's analysis. I wonder what the reverberations and internal effects of this were on your journal and whether they have been written about?

My context is that I am a colleague of Judy Kantrowitz and was asked to bring my perspectives on clinical writing to my review of her book and to my discussion with you. On a personal note, I am more comfortable as a speaker than as a writer, and this has shaped some of my ideas about clinical writing. I have focused on the issue of writing about patients as it is related to the potential inhibitions and constraints on the part of the analyst when he tries to reveal his work. I have also examined how greater comfort w