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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to present a parallelism in working through mourning processes within a context of illusory self-perceptions which occur both in the analyst and the patient. The consequences of mourning are then, reflected in the analyst's attitude towards psychoanalysis itself, as well as, the analyst's attitude towards the Psychoanalytic Association.
The paper emphasises the analyst's own work on unresolved internal issues which resurface in response to the specifics of a particular patient's analysis. The author compares the analyst's work with the patient during the time of the analyst's training with the analyst's work after qualification. She considers the way different aspects of the training, such as being subject to assessment, the availability of a support group of teachers and colleagues, the analyst's own analysis, the fear of losing a patient, and a reliance on an external superego of the Association's requirements, guidance and demands, which made it impossible for the analyst to leave the patient-analyst collusion.
The completion of the training is presented as a transformational process of the analyst's ideas regarding analytical treatment, which is essentially a result of facing disappointment with herself, the analytical method, the teachers and the integration of objects and undesirable aspects of oneself. The analytical processes occurring within the analyst - patient pairing, can be compared to the processes within the relationship between the analyst as candidate and the Psychoanalytical Association.
Neville Symington's concept of ‘the analyst's act of freedom’, helps to describe the moment when the analyst leaves the collusion, which causes a change within the analyst-patient pairing. A similar notion stands behind the author's viewpoint on the development of the relationship between the analyst and the Psychoanalytical Association. The analyst's own analysis fosters a dialog within the institution and helps to avoid projections of omnipotence into the institution as well as the working method.