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Lewis Aron’s article was innovative. Twenty-five years later, what has changed? Has our way of working clinically evolved? It seems to me that many of the changes point toward a growing interest in how analyst and patient co-create each other’s subjectivities. What unformulated experiences become activated in the analytic relationship and find expression through enactments? These are questions that continue to invite reflection.
The patient’s subjectivity, in constant interaction with the therapist’s, can bring traumatic experiences back to life. Ferenczi was already moving in this direction when he dared to speak about mutual analysis with Elizabeth Severn (Rachman, 2014). One of the legacies of that work is the recognition that dialogue is essential if we want to understand what happens between two subjectivities and within the analytic relationship itself (Plaza, 2026).
As I reread Aron’s paper, I find myself thinking about what the subjectivities of the last two analysts I have worked with have meant to me.
My current analyst is a woman. I know very little about her, although perhaps more than I can put into words. She must be over seventy. I sense that she’s still searching. She left Mexico City to live in two smaller cities in the interior of the country. I believe she was looking for a better quality of life. Although she’s not a relational analyst, she is thoughtful and willing to share certain aspects of her experience. I imagine her as someone with the inner freedom to make important choices, and I feel her commitment to the work we do together. Thinking about these aspects of her subjectivity encourages me in my own search. It leaves me wondering: how can I live better?
Her presence invites me to reflect not only on my subjectivity but also on hers. Even when she does not explicitly state her position, I often find myself pausing, reconsidering, and looking at things from a different perspective.
Patients have a sense of their analyst’s subjectivity, whether t