Two Discussions of 'The Mind of the Analyst' and a Response from Madeleine Baranger

I should like to thank Madeleine Baranger for presenting her concept of the dynamic working relationship established between analyst and analysand. She very perceptively describes it as a special field of interaction which is continuously being created, which involves more for analysands than just a repetition of past relationships and which is constantly influencing both participants in the psychoanalytic process. When I was invited to participate in this discussion, I was given the choice of either discussing Madeleine Baranger's paper directly or giving a position statement. As the topic is so vast, I though it might be more useful for me to give some supplementary ideas, focusing attention on some specific thoughts, feelings and attitudes which are particular to the way we function mentally and emotionally as analysts.

Being a psychoanalyst is an exceedingly challenging and demanding profession. We offer a unique form of therapy which requires us to develop very special skills and attitudes in addition to acquiring a thorough understanding of psychoanalytic concepts, From the moment of our first encounter with a person asking for help we constantly have in mind our basic premise, namely that oedipal and pre-oedipal desires, which have been repressed but not renounced, frequently become sources of symptoms and mental disturbances which dominate and often cripple the lives of adults. This concept involves recognition of the mysterious and almost unbelievable power of unconscious and preconscious mental functioning to prevent individuals from attaining their conscious desires. We do not assume that these are the only causes of symptoms and problems but they are the ones for which we offer help. In contrast to those who practise other forms of psychotherapy, our constant and repetitive task is almost exclusively concentrated on perceiving and communicating the countless ramifications of these repressed desires and of the habitual reactions which have been deve