You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Not to enlighten one who can be enlightened is to waste a man; to endeavor to enlighten one who cannot be enlightened is to waste words. The intelligent man wastes neither his man nor his words. — Confucius
Man is a mystery. One must solve it. If you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery because I want to be a man. — Dostoevsky2
THESE TWO SEEMINGLY CONTRADICTORY statements summarize the dilemma and my attitude towards the issues of reanalysis as well as to analysis in general. Confucius speaks of waste of time, in our frame of reference referring to analyzability, or treatability, while Dostoevsky alludes to the endlessness of the process of self-investigation. And yet, these statements are complementary.
This paper is based on 53 cases of reanalysis from my practice. Selection was guided by the elimination of patients analyzed by inexperienced therapists in order to avoid the use of candidates or supervisees as guinea pigs. I confined myself to patients who had been engaged for two to seven years in analysis with experienced, even outstanding analysts, recognized as experts in the field.