Discussion of ‘The Case of Alix: A Psychoanalytic Transformation When a Baby Makes Three’

Psycho-analysis itself is just a stripe on the coat of the tiger. Ultimately it may meet the Tiger.

Several analysts in this section have written about the manifold ways in which a case can be reported and also looked at by discussants (Boesky, 2013; Bronstein, 2013; Scarfone, 2011; Steiner, 2013). The way a case is reported partly relates to cultural idiosyncrasies but a second look may also reveal that the analyst's theoretical choice, her technique and her style of interpreting may be subtly influenced by her countertransference to the patient in question. However, as discussants of a single case report of a colleague we have never met it would be hard to tease out these factors. Thus we can only beg for indulgence from the analyst of the case and hope to be taken with benevolent skepticism by the readers. Not having been in the room with the patient we cannot claim to know any more than the treating clinician what was going on there. We may try by extrapolation of our own clinical experiences to put ourselves in the analyst's shoes and imagine what our experience of that particular psychoanalytic game would have been.

We need to be aware that the report of a session is the final product of the patient's story as it unfolded in the analytic hour, the analyst playing a diversity of roles, as a listener, as a recipient of the patient's transferences, as a respondent with her countertransferences and so on. The report, then, is the analyst's story of the totality of her experience, which adds depth and perspectives to what we get to hear or read. Then there is our own response as commentators. Are we possibly expected to be objective observers or are we, too, active participants via our identifications with the patient, the analyst, the characters and dramas we read/listen to and also our positive and negative affinities to the report's implicit theoretical groundings?

Haydée Faimberg (2013) and S