The Way Things Are: 1975

NOTHING HAS CHANGED in the realm of psychoanalysis with regard to Bridgman's tenet about observation, since Dr. Chrzanowski presented his pungent paper in 1963. The evolution of the disinterested point of view and the creation of a climate in which it can be facilitated, with regard to ourselves remains, as always, problematic.

Dr. Chrzanowski's essay is rich in seminal perspectives on many things, from the reasons for the splitting of psychoanalytic institutes (because of dissident interpersonal approaches), to the observations on the social nature of mutual interdependence, mutual expectations, and the integrating tendencies of intimacy. As someone to whom Dr. Chrzanowski has been a valued mentor, I would like to confine myself from my own perspective to two central issues in this paper—the reciprocal millieu for the support of neurosis, and the shifting kaleidoscope of roles in the interpersonal situation in treatment, and its relationship to the psychoanalytic process, as we objectively, and interdependently with the patient, perceive it today.

In a previous paper (1974), I tried to define some of the factors which block and inhibit honest reportage in supervision in the supervisor—supervisee dyad, and which raise the level of anxiety in learning, so that the candidate cannot integrate successfully those three commanding areas—personal analysis, supervision and course work.

To examine the "fostering" of neurosis in postgraduate teachers and analysts, I wish to return to the subject of climates in psychoanalytic institutes which may, indeed, perpetuate psychopathology in the group and in the individual. In the spirit of Bridgman, as participant observer, take full responsibility with others for my own contributions to the folly.

The young analyst like his patient grows up in a frightful bind. He is taught one thing and finds his analyst practicing another or