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“A focus on the match between patient and analyst places attention on the dynamic effect of the interaction of character and conflict of both participants on the process that evolves between them” (p. 29).
This first sentence of Judy Kantrowitz's first paper on patient-analyst match—written in 1986 and included in this book as chapter 1—was a radical statement in the context of American ego psychology. Like so many of Kantrowitz's sentences, it is carefully crafted, simply stated, and full of meaning. It introduces a new and distinct voice in American psychoanalysis, one clinically astute while also pursuing empirical evidence for what actually works in clinical psychoanalysis, regardless of the practitioner's theoretical preference. She was ahead of her time.
Let's unpack this first sentence. The analytic experience is seen as two independent personalities bringing in their own psychologies and
ways of being and relating. This was novel in the American analytic literature of the time, the idea that the personality of each participant matters and is worthy of study. The analyst is a real person, and that reality affects the process. The two-person encounter produces a dynamic effect, alive and evolving. Match means how these two personalities fit together in ways that promote or hinder growth in the patient and in the analytic process. This matching of two subjectivities is the process, evolving in therapeutic ways, or not. I want to highlight another important point in her statement. The match is a process between them. Analytic process is a two-person event that occurs between and within each—the analyst, as well as the patient. Both evolve; both are affected by each other and by the interaction they are involved in.
“Match,” Kantrowitz powerfully states, “is what drives the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis” (p. 1). Note that therapeutic action is not driven by insight and effective transference interpretation, though I believe Kantrowitz would consider them n