The Analytic Third

We are indebted to Thomas Ogden for the concept of the analytic third. It refers to the intermediary, intersubjective analytic space that emerges between an analyst and a patient through a process of unconscious exchange during a session. The analytic third is a space where thoughts, fantasies and affects that may have otherwise remained silent are mobilised and manifested. Although it emerges from a process of co-creation, the form and content of this “third” element are primarily determined by the patient's internal object world, his unconscious fantasies and defence system. This notion is reminiscent of the concepts of potential space of D.W. Winnicott (1960) and the analytic object of Andre Green (1975).

In order to access this co-creation, the analyst must be able to draw on his most banal reveries. For this, he must be able to tolerate his own uncomfortable sensations and feelings: feeling lost, frustrated, angry or confused, for instance. The analytic third can only really be constituted and thought about retrospectively, often long after being experienced in the session. It is not an event experienced identically by both participants, but an unconscious and asymmetrical co-creation that gives structure to the analytic relationship.

A patient usually came to her sessions having prepared herself in advance; she would begin with an exhaustive list of what she had done, thought about and felt since the last session. She expressed all

this without the slightest affect, in an almost sterile manner, as if she were establishing an autopsy report on her psychic life, taking care to enumerate each element without providing the slightest elaboration. This approach to sessions sometimes left the analyst feeling trapped and helpless, as if the patients factual, pragmatic narrative accounts prevented the analyst from thinking, associating or being receptive to her own reveries or those of the patient.

The patient described her parents as absent. Her father was never home,