Chapter 23 On the Necessity for the Analyst to Be Natural with His Patient (1978)

This paper was written in German in honour of Alexander Mitscherlich on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. It was published in Provokation und Toleranz. Alexander Mitscherlich zu ehren, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978, and has been translated into English for this book.

The observations that I am going to report are in accord with Alexander Mitscherlich’s untiring efforts, struggles, and disappointments, as is shown by the list of his publications. The spectrum ranges from ‘Medicine without humanity’ (Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit) to ‘The desolation of our cities’ (Die Unwirtlichkeit unserer Städte). They could be collected under the title ‘Naturalness, Honesty, and Creative Effort: The Foundations of Humanity and of Psycho-Analysis’. We can furthermore learn from him that courage is a prerequisite for a naturally humane way of acting.

My contribution should be considered a kind of picture book. The pictures are taken from my clinical work with patients and students. I hope they will stimulate the onlookers and remind them of their own experiences. Yet, since pictures are ambiguous, I will also give my own commentaries. Many readers may well have a different opinion. Because of the personalities of those involved, every analysis is unique.

Driven by his suffering, the patient turns to the analyst in the hope of finding help. The analyst can provide help if he himself originally came to analysis as someone who was ill—and in some regards still is ill—but had the courage to do without falsehood and tricks, in this way making something creative out of his illness.