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The Analysts ‘Analyst Within vividly plunges the reader into the mind of the analyst as patient. It is a compilation of Lora Heims Tessman's study composed of excerpts from 34 microscopically detailed interviews with analysts about their personal analyses. The interviews are packed full of raw personal testimony, and it is both a treat and an arduous journey to read through this material — almost like the process of analysis itself. For readers who want to see a picture of the truly idiosyncratic inner workings of analysis — especially what it feels like to be an analyst in analysis — this book provides a fascinating and haunting perspective.
Sometimes I couldn't put the book down; other times I felt I had to keep slogging through it, reminding myself all the way, “Yes, you do want to know about the costs and the gains, the disappointments and the achievements, the hard-to-categorize and the confusing aspects of what analysts/patients have to say.” It was very sad and upsetting to read the interviews with the analysts who consistently and persuasively described their analyses as highly unsatisfactory and even damaging. Sometimes the reasons for these failures were all-too-real-sounding stories of narrow minded-ness, theoretical dislikes, and simplistic, self-serving judgments on both sides. Other times it seemed simply impossible to know what had gone wrong. At the same time, it was exhilarating to read and re-discover in this very special, detailed way the moment-to-moment descriptions of good, analytic process that rang true to my ear as an analyst and contributed to my own conviction about what really makes analysis work.
The Analysts ‘Analyst Within is, more than anything else, unusual because of its one-of-a-kind nuggets of insights that are uncategorizable. However, some interesting recurring patterns, themes, and questions also emerge from the interview data that are worth listing. The following is just a sample of some of the prominent ones:
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