You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
For some years now, it has seemed to me that important aspects of my way of practicing psychoanalysis are better described as an analytic style than as an analytic technique. Though style and technique are inseparable, for the purposes of the present discussion, I am using the term analytic technique to refer to a way of practicing analysis that has been, to a large extent, developed by a branch or group of branches of one’s analytic ancestry, as opposed to being a creation of one’s own. By contrast, analytic style is not a set of principles of practice, but a living process that has its origins in the personality and experience of the analyst.
The term analytic style, as I am using it, puts as much emphasis on the word analytic as it does on the word style. Not every style that an analyst may adopt is analytic, and not every way of practicing psychoanalysis bears the unique mark (the “style”) of the analyst. The idea of analytic style places greater emphasis than does the concept of analytic technique on the role of (1) the analyst’s use of, and capacity to speak from, the unique qualities of his personality; (2) the analyst’s making use of his own experience as analyst, analysand, parent, child, spouse, teacher, student, friend, and so on; (3) the analyst’s ability to think in a way that draws on, but is independent of, the analytic theory and clinical technique of his analyst, supervisors, analytic colleagues, and analytic ancestors; the analyst must learn analytic theory and technique so thoroughly that one day he will be able to forget them; and (4) the responsibility of the analyst to invent psychoanalysis freshly (to rediscover psychoanalysis) with each patient.
The analyst’s style is a living, ever-changing way of being with
himself and the patient. The entirety of the analyst’s style is present in every session with every patient. And yet, particular elements of his style play a greater role than others with any given patient in any given session. Analytic