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DELPHINIUMS BLUE AND GERANIUMS RED: DISAGREEMENTS, IMPASSES AND PROBLEMS OF COMMUNICATION IN THE ANALYTIC SITUATION. Theodore J. Jacobs, M.D.
At the first gathering of The Mudd Memorial Meeting, Dr. Jacobs presented a candid discussion of disagreements between patient and analyst, which demonstrated how a careful examination of the analyst's role in their development can be a powerful stimulus to analytic progress. Resistance on both sides of the couch can lead to impasses. Important issues, often unconscious, are concealed in a collusion to avoid painful affects, but rarely discussed is the phenomenon of conscious avoidance by the analyst. Dr. Jacobs pointed out how analysts protect themselves from having to deal with powerful affects and petty faults by focusing on the patient's material. They are adept at creating an analytic screen to deflect painful situations away from themselves. "[We are using] our skills to produce the illusion that we are doing effective work and [to avoid] an uncomfortable truth: that our shortcomings, whether they take the form of a lapse of attention, an unnecessary critical comment, a failure to recognize the truth of a patient's perception, or a momentary need to upstage him, exert a powerful influence on all that occurs at any given time in the treatment situation." The analyst's normal self-esteem needs are at work here. The problem goes beyond countertransference and becomes an issue of human frailty, to which no analyst is immune.
Dr. Jacobs presented two clinical examples describing his attempt, both consciously and unconsciously, to protect his self-esteem, which skewed the analyses. He believes that if the analyst is able to recognize mistakes of this kind, he or she can