Chapter 9 Some Surprises: A New Style for Case Discussion?

From the very beginning, we have been struck by the high number of people willing to participate in the workshops organized by the Working Party on Comparative Clinical Methods. Demand has consistently outstripped availability of places. Many colleagues return either every year or at least when practical circumstances permit. Where does the special appeal of the experience of the working groups lie?

It is as if the groups had answered a hidden demand within the psychoanalytic community. Their success has been far greater than expected. Not only have they enriched research in psychoanalysis, but also the many colleagues who were participants in the groups have been enthusiastic about their experience.

Among other comments on the special qualities of the groups’ experience we would like to quote the following about the Athens meeting in 2006:

My expectation was to find something helpful for the task of teaching clinical psychoanalysis to the students, and the experience was very rich in this way. In this group the position of the presenter was respected and protected, all the participants worked hard to think about the analytical situation, and to think about psychoanalytical means, each in his theoretical way. A real comparing method was used in the workshop, helped by the lines traced in the ‘method’. Particularly useful was the task of selecting a place for every analytic intervention; this task revealed the internal model of

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every participant, in very cooperative, friendly way We had the feeling of the unity of psychoanalysis, beyond our difference of theory … I came home with new ideas for my clinical seminars with the students.

The difference of these groups from a group supervision carried out with an acknowledged supervisor may help to explain the enthusiasm for this work. No matter how tactful and discreet supervisors try to be, their own approach remains inevitably present. There is a line of strong thought, pe