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Patrick Casement has written a series of books that offer rich and fruitful thinking about the process of learning the craft of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Starting in 1985 with his first groundbreaking book On Learning From the Patient (1985), he went on to write three further ‘Learning from’ texts: Further Learning from the Patient (1990); Learning from our Mistakes: Beyond Dogma in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (2002) and finally Learning Along the Way (2019). This latest publication offers further engaging insights into his thinking and technique, gleaned from his long career.
Casement explores the complex dilemmas of being in a room with a patient and beginning the journey of analysis, in the face of a range of pressures from oneself, patients and supervisors. He contends that we should approach our practice without dogma and must treat the ‘form’ of our mistakes as crucial clues to understanding the inner world or our patients. Both these ideas are central axioms for psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Bion (1967) famously spoke of not going into sessions with an agenda. Our practice needs to be concerned primarily not with what has happened, nor with what is going to happen, but with what is happening in the present. Winnicott (1965) pointed out that the analyst often fails in ways determined by the patient’s history. It is therefore crucially important to leave room for the patient to correct the analyst and for the analyst to learn from being corrected.
We know from decades of child development research that the timing of interaction between mother and baby, the level of attunement, and the way mis-steps are repaired, is key to an infant being able to develop the capacity to manage stress and form secure relationships (Music, 2016; Stern, 2018; Tronick, 2007). Both parenting and therapy involve an attempt to communicate, gain understanding and repair interactions when failures have occurred. Reflecting on our inevitable ‘mistakes’ is central to our psych