The Formative Activity of the Analyst: Richard Sterba. Int. J. Psa., XXV, 1944, pp. 146–150.

The annulment of pathogenic defenses through psychoanalytic treatment is supposed to bring back to the disposal of the patient the forces hitherto bound in defensive struggles. The repressed infantile strivings find connection with the mature personality and therefore can themselves mature. An ideal technique can be confident that the forces liberated through the psychoanalytic process will automatically be integrated by the mature personality. Practically it may often be necessary to spend a portion of that phase of the analysis which is called 'working through' not only in a repeated demonstration of infantile patterns but also in a discussion of the possibilities of a more mature behavior. Sterba seems to think that this is not accidental but rather very essential in psychoanalysis. 'In my opinion the analyst has the further duty of helping the patient in overcoming mental inertia, of showing him how to use the newly acquired insight into himself, into his pathological repetitions, anxieties and defenses constructively, so that a re-orientation towards his inner as well as his outer world shall result… This additional function of helping the patient, which may even amount to forcing him to establish a re-orientation of his personality and a re-adaptation to his outside world, I should like to describe as the "formative activity" of the analyst.' The reviewer would think that if 'persuasion and threat, promise of reward, encouragement and praise' are really necessary in order to achieve this aim, this is a sign that the analytic annulment of the pathogenic defenses did not succeed very well. For a therapeutic procedure which uses such means as Sterba's statement that: 'The actual superiority of the analyst's personality to that of his patient is of considerable help' is correct; but what does Sterba do if he is asked to help a person whose personality is superior to his?