The Influence of Values and Value Judgments on the Psychoanalytic Encounter

The psychoanalytic encounter involves multifaceted value dimensions. Traditionally values have been treated as component aspects of psychic structures and as features that play some part in the therapeutic exchange. On the patient's side of the encounter, values have been subsumed within the concepts of the superego and the ego ideal. On the analyst's side, values have been considered a facet of therapeutic intent and countertransference. Most commonly, I believe, value issues are considered largely adjunctive factors while issues of drive and ego functioning, and of transference are given prime attention. Thus, although difficulties in the psychoanalytic encounter have been studied extensively to discern latent problems that arise from an underemphasis or overemphasis on drive, on conflict-laden functioning, on conflict-free functioning, on defenses, on oedipal or on preoedipal transference configurations, no systematic study has been made of latent problems from the standpoint of values—or more particularly of unrecognized value judgments. A hypothesis I would advance is that values can be successfully subsumed within traditional concepts, but that if the “coin” is turned