Editors' Introduction

It will come as no surprise to our readers if we formally declare that psychoanalysis is in the midst of a fierce struggle to define itself. Heated debates are under way, and have been for some years, as to the boundaries of our discipline: At what point, if any, can a theory be described as no longer psychoanalytic? At what point, if any, can a technical procedure be defined as no longer psychoanalytic? At what point can a training program be said no longer to produce psychoanalysts? We will have much to say on these problems in future issues. For the moment, in this issue, we focus on that part of the battlefield where the attacks and counterattacks focus on analytic technique. In particular, on the most intense flashpoint of the battle: self-disclosure of the analyst to the patient.

On the question of self-revelation of the analyst (i.e., the person of the analyst as perceived by the patient through human attributes such as age, sex, appearance, clothes, speech, mannerisms, mood), there seems now to be general agreement: The analyst as human is inevitably revealed to the patient, to one degree or another, and all of these revelations or perceptions can be handled analytically, often to good effect, whether the patient's perceptions are accurate, distorted by transference, or both.

However, on the question of active self-disclosure by the analyst to the patient of his feelings, personal history, direct responses to the patient (and so forth without limit)—here the battle lines are drawn. On the one side are those who feel that such a procedure is inevitably disruptive of the analytic process and on the other are those who feel that self-disclosure can be liberating to both patient and analyst. In the middle are a large group of “moderates,” who feel that self-disclosure can occasionally be useful if its impact is well analyzed.

We will ourselves attempt to nondisclose our position in the service of fairly presenting all sides of the question. We believe the Symposium