The First Interview In Modern Psychoanalysis*

An intial contact and interview between patient and analyst in modern analysis differs in many ways from an initial contact and interview in classical psychoanalysis. Some similarities also exist. In the following discussion these differences and similarities in theory and practice will be highlighted and a summary of a modern psychoanalytic first interview will be presented as an illustration.

The first rules laid out by Freud (1912, 1913) for practicing analysts were based on his conviction that to take on the treatment of the schizophrenias or narcissistic disorders was a gross error of judgment. He believed that an analyst who undertakes to treat such cases “has committed a practical error; he has been responsbile for wasted expenditure and has discredited his method of treatment. He cannot fulfill his promise of cure.” A less pessimistic view of the psychoanalytic treatment of severe mental disorders is now emerging (Searles, 1965; Arieti, 1974).

While the definition of psychoanalysis as “any line of investigation which takes transference and resistance as the starting point of its work” remains the same, the rules and advice of classical analysis, as gleaned from Freud's early papers, differ in several important instances from those of the present-day modern analyst. The