How to “Enter” a Psychoanalytic Process Conducted by Another Analyst: A Self Psychology View

The evolution of a psychoanalytic process is codetermined by what each participant brings to it. Hence, the analyst is ever mindful of letting the patient's contribution emerge as spontaneously as possible. Looking at this process rather grossly, we may perhaps still agree with Freud that, just as in a chess game, only the opening and closing moves are well defined; while those in between are of an endless, unpredictable variety. Still, we often speak of a “standard procedure”—which exists only if we look at the psychoanalytic process in a very distant and highly abstract way. When we examine any sample of this process under the microscope, however, neither the chess-game analogy (except for the in between phase with its endless variety), nor the idea of a “standard procedure” holds true. Any entry into a psychoanalysis — as well as the full journey through it — is always highly idiosyncratic for both participants, no matter how we may generalize about these entries. On this microscopic level there is nothing “standard” or “well defined” about the precise conduct of an analysis, because no two analyses are ever alike, even if they are not haphazard and have their definite, well-articulated general “rules.” To put it more explicitly, when patient and analyst embark on their joint venture, the most highly