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.
Psychoanalysis involves a unique, affective-cognitive, verbal and nonverbal interaction between analysand and analyst. Because the goal is to explore the intrapsychic realm of the analysand, most studies of the analytic process give primary attention to the analysand's associations as the fundamental source of information. I propose to reverse the usual focus from the analysand's communications to the analyst's interventions. My focus shifts not simply to one or more interpretations that are studied for evidence of the analyst's understanding or style or theoretical stance but to a sequence of interpretations. By sequence of interpretations I mean the interventions the analyst makes or does not make in a unit of time; in the example to follow, in one week of analysis. Ideally through the sequence of interpretations, the analyst conveys a coherence sense of purpose enabling the successive interventions to have a cumulative effect. I hope to demonstrate that the sequence of interpretations constitutes in the aggregate a substantial component of the work toward understanding and change that takes place in a successful analysis.
Attention centered on either the analysand's associations or the analyst's interventions does violence to the unity of the two-person experience. Appropriately we take as our usual position that the analyst's interventions are responses to the analysand's communications guided by the analyst's comprehension of their meaning.