Notes on the Patient, the Analyst and the Past

THIS MEETING'S TITLE IS controversial. How the past is approached and used to help the patient has always been controversial

in psychoanalysis. In fact the White Institute catalog describes it's program of psychoanalytic training as "based on the conviction that the study of lives in depth provides the best foundation for all forms of psychotherapy and for research into difficulties in living."

What is depth in analysis? What depth is most critical for a given patient? Is deeper better? Are there specific depths for all people which if reached are crucial? Current practical focus on the transference in the here and now sees this "depth" as critical even if it is seemingly independent of history.

Postulated fantasy systems from early life have been given prominence. The primal scene or ideas about the primal scene were central issues for Freud. The Wolfman's analysis was organized around supposed primal scene experience. Kohut and his followers work with a different strata in mind—that strata where needs for mirroring along with an idealized relationship originate.

One background issue for this discussion is political. What is considered historical in psychoanalysis has always depended on what history was deemed most acceptable. Analysts though we prefer to deny it—are always captive to the cultural climate, the history of psychoanalysis and the prevailing status of psychoanalysis.