Experience cannot be reduced to meaning.

In 1993-1994, a conference was held that generated the material published in this book. One of the participants, Owen Renik, suggested at that time that discussion of therapeutic alliance is no longer an interesting way to approach the understanding of psychoanalytic technique, process, and therapeutic action, and most important of all, of the nature of the relationship between the analyst and the patient. Is this accurate, or was he pushing his own agenda of the inevitable subjectivity of the analyst? Have we indeed moved that much toward intersubjectivity and relational views of psychoanalysis? Has Lawrence Friedman's idea that the therapeutic alliance is a fiction truly taken hold? Does an analyst “find” a cooperative patient, and is all participation in treatment simply wishful compliance and submission?