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March 19, 1979. PANEL DISCUSSION: INSIGHT IN CHILD AND ADULT PSYCHOANALYSIS. Harold Blum, M.D., Peter A. Neubauer, M.D., and Samuel Abrams, M.D.
Dr. Blum emphasized the central position of insight in psychoanalysis, noting that it is inseparable from analytic theory, technique, and therapeutic effect. Insight propels the analytic process forward, creating a circular interaction between further insight and productive analytic work leading to structural change. Insight, however, also occurs outside of analysis, as demonstrated by the extraordinary illuminations of the human condition which occur in art. In psychotherapy insight tends to be superficial, selectively used, and limited to current derivatives of unconscious conflict, as opposed to its use in analysis where it reaches and resolves unconscious conflicts in a far more pervasive and enduring way.
Insight into preconscious problems achieved by clarification and education is not comparable to analytic insight, in which systematic interpretation deals with renewed resistance and is followed by working through, continued analytic work, and further extension of insight. Assimilation of insight is usually gradual and tenuous until it is confirmed and recreated in the wealth of interlacing analytic data. The analytic process proceeds with increasing insight into the unconscious pathogenic childhood conflicts and their later derivatives and effects. While insight is central to analytic progress it can, as Kris noted, be used for purposes of defense or infantile gratification. Additionally, intellectualization can take the place of insight, producing pseudo-insight. The "good hour" has been "prepared" unconsciously by the preceding analytic work and culminates in new autonomous insights which in turn are integrated into the personality, largely out of awareness, and contribute to the autonomy of other ego functions.
Although most analysts would agree that the goal of analysis is insight, this view has occasiona