You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The purpose of this addendum to my book, Psychoanalytic Technique and the Creation of Analytic Patients (Rothstein 1995b), is to respond to criticisms that have been raised since its publication and to clarify premises that have been misunderstood.
For the past quarter century, I have been interested in why so many well-trained psychoanalysts have such difficulty developing successful and satisfying psychoanalytic practices. This interest has resulted in a number of presentations and publications (see also Rothstein 1986, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995a). These publications derived from and emphasized clinical data rather than theoretical formulations.
However, in the process of discussing my findings (Rothstein 2000, 2003), I became aware that there has been a failure in the traditional pedagogy employed for the past eighty years regarding the selection of suitable patients for analysis. Authoritative training analysts have propagated the illusion that prospective analysands could be evaluated in a visa-vis consultation, and that suitable “good cases” could be selected. This myth has been conveyed in courses on “selection” and “analyzability.” These courses persist despite research demonstrating that it is not possible to accurately prognosticate outcome at the beginning of an analysis. Relatedly, many analytic candidates begin analyses with patients who