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That “psychoanalysis is an old man's game” may well be true, but in Richard Chessick's cautionary article he alerts us to vitally important but relatively unnoticed aspects of the game. He won't let us flinch or blink as with thirteen brief clinical vignettes he rivets our attention on the effects of how the analysand may perceive the senility1 of the analyst, and on the inevitable effects of those perceptions on the analytic process. At first this story seems long familiar from our literature, but it is not. While many before have commented on the need for the analyst to recognize and deal with the diminished and diminishing capacities that accompany aging, these useful observations have been viewed exclusively from only one side of the looking glass—the analyst's. But the analysand too is a participant-observer in the treatment, the one who sees the signs of the analyst's aging even if the analyst does not, cannot, or doesn't want to. Inevitably an analysand has reactions to these perceptions, reactions he too may deny or otherwise attempt to bury in what Chessick deems a dangerous “silent collusion” with the analyst that can “lead to destruction of the treatment” (p. 67).
It may be difficult or impossible for some analysands to share their unflatterng observations with their analysts as readily as Lewis Carroll's persona does in this famous interchange:
“You are old father William,” the young man said,“And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head—Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
Stephen Firestein (1994) warned of the usefulness of a professional last will and testament (cited in Goldberger 1994, p. 360 n). Many others have commented on the vulnerabilities, diminishing powers, and declining health of elderly analysts. This is a well-plowed field. By now we