Reply to Commentary

As I noted at the beginning of “speaking of feelings,” the very act of putting ideas into words can convey a false sense of clarity and closure—which is in fact a common complaint of many of the analysands who inspired this discussion. Let me say immediately, therefore, that it was by no means my intention to suggest that attention to details of daily life outside of the therapy should always supplant examination of the moment-to-moment details of the analytic relationship even in an analysis of the most disturbed or fragile individual. In her thoughtful and provocative discussion, Dr. Brisman has elucidated an extremely important aspect of the process of working with analysands to articulate internal experience. There is no question that what Brisman describes as detailed attention “to what the patient is actually doing in the room, both with behaviors and with language,” is crucial to this activity. This interest, however, is not necessarily as straightforward as Brisman seems to be suggesting. Although there are many times when direct examination of the experience within the analysis is the most productive way to proceed, I have also found that—at times precisely because of the fears of contradicting and/or separating from the omniscient Other that Brisman describes—there are many occasions in which an analysand cannot tolerate the focus on the minute details of their verbal and nonverbal behavior in the analytic relationship.

My concern, however, is that these different approaches not be polarized into an either-or stance. Although there are growing numbers of theorists who suggest that examination of the workings of the analytic dyad are central to all analytic work, I believe that there are some serious dangers attached to a model that implies that this is the exclusive domain for analytic exploration. One of the difficulties concomitant with most contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing is our growing realization that the exploration of meaning often occu