Theory as Maternal Environment: Using Winnicott to Explore the Beginning Psychotherapist'S Relationship to Theory

Many well-known psychoanalytic theorists and veteran analysts speak of working with patients in a manner free from intellectual constraints and predetermined theoretical inclinations to allow for greater spontaneity, aliveness, and realness in the consulting room. Arguably, this becomes possible only after a beginning stage during which theory has been made use of and internalized to such an extent that the analyst's own subjectivity as an analyst has developed. Only with an internalized theoretical sensitivity and the development of a creative, subjective “therapist-self” can one practice ostensibly free from theoretical notions in the moment-to-moment interactions with patients.

In illustrating the ways in which theory facilitates the development of the trainee, the present discussion draws upon the work of Winnicott, whose developmental theory highlights the environmental functions provided to the infant before and during the emergence of subjectivity. While Winnicott's emphasis is on the real mother and her attunement to her infant, my emphasis is on the analogous functions that a beginning therapist's relationship to theory can provide in the service of developing a new kind of subjectivity — that of the self-as-therapist.

The beginner's relationship to theory has critical ramifications for developing the capacity to tolerate, and develop within, his role as therapist. As an object relationship, the therapist's relation to theory is not an interpersonal one and is thus not subject to the same aspects of humanness inherent in relations between people. However, the experience of the trainee in relation to theory and the functions that theory can provide can be one of attunement or misattunement. In Winnicott's terms, the trainee's relationship to the environment of theory can be considered “good-enough” or “not good-enough” as an important facilitator of development.

Like the mother, theory is both external (a real object existing outside of the subject) and interna