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In this, his final book, Patrick Casement has put together a selection of previously published papers containing some of his finest reflections on clinical theory and practice. This volume confirms once again that there is much to learn from what Casement refers to as his “ways of working,” which are rooted firmly in the British Independent tradition.
The high premium that Casement places on the analyst’s capacity to be in touch with their patients’ feelings is made clear from the start, and reiterated in a number of chapters. Being “in touch,” he says, requires the analyst both to experience what the patient is feeling, and to interpret these feelings, always keeping in mind the importance of the timing and content of the interpretation that is offered. This immediately brings to mind the value placed by Sandor Ferenczi on “tact” in psychoanalytic treatment, which he defined as “the capacity for empathy.” This, Ferenczi argued, is essential for judging whether, when and how to interpret a patient’s resistances (Ferenczi 1928). For Casement too, being “in touch” is a key part of the psychoanalytic process: it enables the analyst to perceive and respond to the patient’s unconscious needs, and ultimately help the patient work through troubling or traumatic early experiences so as to achieve a degree of freedom in their lives.
In the paper called A Missed Opportunity, Casement draws explicitly on Winnicott’s notion of “the patient’s use of the analyst’s failure” to support his view that in some cases an analysis that is heading for impasse can be rescued if the analyst can find a way to explain to their patient that something has been unwittingly enacted by both patient and analyst which might have some unconscious meaning for the patient. The analyst’s explanation of their own part in this enactment may well be followed by an intense negative transference, which can then be worked through, thereby potentially bringing the analysis back to life. Casement makes clear that