Making the Best of a Bad Job (1979). Four Papers

When two personalities meet, an emotional storm is created. If they make sufficient contact to be aware of each other, or even sufficient to be unaware of each other, an emotional state is produced by the conjunction of these two individuals, and the resulting disturbance is hardly likely to be regarded as necessarily an improvement on the state of affairs had they never met at all. But since they have met, and since this emotional storm has occurred, the two parties to this storm may decide to ‘make the best of a bad job’.

In analysis, the patient comes into contact with the analyst by coming to the consulting room and engaging in what he thinks is a conversation which he hopes to benefit by in some way. Likewise the analyst probably expects some benefit to occur – to both parties. The patient or the analyst says something. It is curious that this has an effect; it disturbs the relationship between the two people. This would also be true if nothing was said, if they remained silent. I often do remain silent, hoping to see, or become aware of, or observe something which I could then attempt to interpret – I usually leave the initiative to the patient if I can. The result of remaining silent, or of intervening with a remark, or of even saying, “Good morning”, or, “Good evening”, sets up what appears to me to be an emotional storm. One does not immediately know what the emotional storm is, but the problem is how to make the best of it, how to turn the adverse circumstance – as I choose to call it at the moment – to good account. The patient is not obliged to do that; he may not be willing or able to turn it to good account; his aim may be quite different. I can recall an experience in which a patient was anxious that I should conform to his state of mind, a state of mind to which I did not want to conform. He was anxious to arouse powerful emotions in me so

that I would feel angry, frustrated, disappointed, so that I would not be able to think clearly. I therefore h