The Patient's Defensive Analyst

Psycho-analysts and psychotherapists do not always make correct interpretations. It is a difficult technique. Probably all of us make mistakes quite often. I shall argue that this is a very complex event - more than is commonly recognised. When it happens it needs close analysis in the session.

Part of the complexity derives from the emotional work the analyst must do in recognising the situation, and which is avoided more often than is commonly recognised. He has to overcome his own narcissistic wishes - a task which will not escape his patient's attention.

It is therefore complex because ‘the analyst who made a mistake’ is a figure who plays a significant part in the transference and counter-transference. He is an object of great emotional meaning for both patient and analyst. I shall present material to show that the ‘analyst who made a mistake’ is experienced by the patient as an analyst who is defensive.

A further bit of the complexity is that the patient may believe insistently that the analyst is mistaken, even when he is not. At such a moment the patient is divorced from the reality of his internal and external relations. This requires the same emotional work from the analyst to recognise that he is being perceived as an ‘analyst who has made a mistake’. And if the analyst is hesitant or resistant to recognise it, he does indeed make a mistake that confirms his patient's view of him.

From the patient's point of view, the ‘analyst who made a mistake’ and the ‘analyst who is being perceived as having made a mistake’ are one and the same. In this paper I shall not distinguish between the two as I shall be sticking closely to the patient's experience. For the patient, he has a defensive analyst whose priority is to protect his own mind. If the patient detects a defensiveness, real or imagined, how will he understand it?

As the concept of transference has developed, the emphasis on the psychopathology of the patient and on the analyst's inter