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The author posits that for an analytic treatment to be alive and effective, the analyst must invent psychoanalysis with each patient. In responding to the question, “What does it mean to invent psychoanalysis with each patient?” the analyst must first ask himself, “What does it mean to become a psychoanalyst?” and “What is it that defines psychoanalysis.” Further, “What is distinctive about the practice of psychoanalysis?”
In responding to these questions, it becomes apparent that what is definitive of psychoanalysis as a discipline and as a clinical practice are matters that each of us must come to on our own, and that the process of becoming a psychoanalyst is a highly personal endeavor that continues through one’s years of practice.
Becoming a psychoanalyst is not a distinction conferred by a psychoanalytic training program. Development of an analytic sensibility is built upon one’s personal analysis, one’s individual study of psychoanalysis, and one’s clinical experience.
The author presents clinical illustrations of some of the ways he, with each of his patients, invents a form of psychoanalysis unique to the two of them.