Prologue

For the last three decades, Lawrence Friedman has given psychoanalysts a fresh slant on the analytic situation. He has written of the experience of the analyst, which, until recently, was uncommon in analytic literature. He has asked how analysts think in the analytic situation. What are their sources of gratification and frustration? How do they deal with their frustration? How do their needs correspond and diverge from their patients' needs? By understanding why analysts use theory, he explores the experience of the analyst, the reasons that analysts use a particular theory, and the evolution of theory in response to the changing needs of the analyst.

Lawrence Friedman is ideally suited for this task. He is trained in philosophy, history, and psychiatry. His understanding of psychoanalysis is extensive. His writings have special relevance for psychoanalysis because of the current attention given to the experience of the analyst in the analytic situation.

Although the title The Anatomy of Psychotherapy refers to psychotherapy, the book is actually about psychoanalysis. Friedman's premise is that psychoanalysis is a stressful encounter. He believes that it is stressful because of the demands it evokes from the patient, which will be frustrated, and the unnatural responses to the patient's demands that are required of the analyst. The analyst turns to theory for guidance and support in this unnatural situation.

Friedman contends that the objectives of analysis are different for the analyst and patient. The patient wants relief from discomfort and attempts to influence the analyst to provide him with that relief. The analyst wants to analyze and feel like an analyst. In the ideal analytic situation, the analyst remains ambiguous and avoids influencing the patient. The disparity in objectives comprises a major paradox in the psychoanalytic situation. Throughout his book, Friedman deals with how analysts have grappled with that paradox.