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Dear Sir,
Recently within the International Psychoanalytical Association, there has been renewed controversy over the particular practice known as concentrated analysis (Junquiera Mattos, ‘Concentrated analysis: a three decades experience’. In Psychoanalysis in Process: Method, Theory, Applications. Festschrift in Homage to R. Horacio Etchegoyen. New York: Jason Aronson, 1996). Concentrated analysis as a format for psychoanalysis refers to meeting for more than one session per day, typically two sessions per day on two consecutive days. This technical alteration is controversial. Although it may make psychoanalysis more available to analysands who live far from their analyst, questions arise about whether treatment in this format remains truly psychoanalysis. I would like to use my own experience in training analysis of a period of concentrated analysis followed by standard psychoanalysis as a basis to contrast these formats with attention to analysis of resistance, analytic process, transference, and dreams. Such a self report is a risky if not hazardous endeavor, but I believe that this minimal self-disclosure may facilitate inquiry into the timely topic of concentrated analysis.
After I was accepted as an analytic candidate, I needed to begin my training analysis before beginning course work. At that time I lived 250 miles from the institute, but I planned to move to the city of the institute in six months. Any attempt to begin analysis four days per week before the move would have been untenable for me at that time. My training analyst suggested we could begin by meeting twice daily for two consecutive days each week until I could relocate six months later. We met late on Tuesdays and early on Wednesdays with only about an hour between the two sessions for each day. The remainder of my analysis took place four days per week.
The following sketchy and preliminary conclusions are based on my reflections and impressions of my analysis. As an analysand, m