Introduction to the Papers of Phyllis W. Meadow on Treatment Issues

The papers included in this section were written to help answer questions that the practitioner may often ask himself when utilizing the analytic method to deal with a variety of treatment issues. Written over the course of twenty years, Meadow has generously shared with us her thinking process on a number of difficult issues.

In her paper on “Treatment Beginnings,” Meadow demonstrates how in the first session or or first contact with the analyst, the process begins that creates the opportunity for change. As in all her other articles on treatment issues, she stresses the importance of staying with the patient in his perceptions and his projections. Maintaining defenses for as long as the patient needs them is a goal in helping the patient to ultimately be able to engage in emotional communication. Meadow warns us that in the early phase of treatment, the analyst runs the risk of unconscious manipulation of the transference out of the analyst's own needs or unconscious inductions to repeat the patient's past, thus not allowing the patient to develop the kind of narcissistic transference he needs. We must be able to feel all of our own feelings with our patients and resonate with them, so that they can say anything to us or hear anything from us.

One of the themes that emerge from these papers and continues to be clarified in all her writing is the belief that the analyst should not limit herself to any one mode of thought or way of working. In fact, reliance on theory can be used as a resistance to fully being with