Meetings of the Psychoanalytic Institute and Society of New England, East

DISCUSSION: Dr. Axel Hoffer discussed Ferenczi's idea that the training analysis requirement would cause the "personal element" to dwindle away and that differences

of analytic technique would tend to disappear. Eissler's influential 1953 paper on parameters is in the same spirit of a growing emphasis on "analytic objectivity." Representing the contrasting modern view, Dr. Simon described the genesis of his paper in an earlier paper on the relation of the character of theory-makers to their theories. Now he looks at the relationship between what is personal and what can be generalized in psychoanalytic technique. Dr. Arthur Valenstein commented on the issue of classical analysis, alluding to Leo Stone's discussion of the post-war effort to make psychoanalysis highly scientific. Stone has described efforts like Eissler's as neoclassic. Recent trends have included emphasis on personal characteristics which may either enliven or tax the analytic situation. Stone described Freud's technical maxims as geometric sculptures, without the rounded corners and creative whimsy of the actual situation. Dr. Simon noted that when he was a candidate, he was puzzled by Stone's radical work, and he recounted Stone's then-rare comments on converting psychotherapy to psychoanalysis. Dr. Valenstein discussed Samuel Lipton's paper on technique and the relation of Lipton's ideas to the difficult patients he treated. Dr. Simon agreed that the patients one treats influence one's technique, and described the cognitive dissonance of candidates struggling with patients who are often different from those described in seminars. He noted that the character of the analyst is frequently considered in the process of referral, as is patient-analyst match. A challenge for technique, according to Dr. Simon, is to articulate issues of the analyst's character when an analysis is not going smoothly. Dr. Hoffer asked about analyses which go too smoothly, without necessary tension. Dr. Simo