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The relativity of psychoanalytic cure” in the title of this paper expresses my conviction that cure in psychoanalysis cannot be stated in absolute terms “Relativity” refers not only to the curative potential of psychoanalysis as a treatment method, and to the variety in the conduct of analysis even by analysts of the same theoretical persuasion, but also to the fact that what for one patient may be a major improvement may be totally insignificant for another In any case, I think it would be better if we dropped the word “cure” in this context and spoke of the healing rather than the curative factors in psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysts have long been asking: “How does the analytic process bring about psychic change? How does analysis work?” Whether analysis works at all, whether it in fact facilitates the healing process, has not been seriously addressed within our ranks According to Cooper (1989), this question has not been asked because “the evidence of nearly a century of clinical experience that analysis does have therapeutic benefits has been taken at face value” (p. 4).
My description of the curative factors in psychoanalysis and in psychotherapy will be in keeping with my own theoretical orientation, and I presume my fellow panellists will do the same This is as it should be. the answer to how psychoanalysis may heal must be in keeping with the assumptions of a specific theory about the etiology and the pathogenesis of the disturbances it intends to cure For example, when hysterical symptoms were understood to arise in relation to forgotten, unconscious memories, the aim of treatment was to make the unconscious conscious the process that was assumed to have caused