Prologue

Perhaps the last two decades will be seen as a period in the history of psychoanalysis when attention was finally directed to the analyst in the analytic situation. Because of a relativistic view of reality, the development of conceptual tools that account for narcissism, object relations, development, and almost a century of clinical experience have resulted in a modification of the analyst's role in the treatment situation. The consequence has been for analysts to scrutinize themselves more carefully than they had previously.

An outstanding exemplar of this trend is Theodore J. Jacobs's book The Use of the Self (the “self” in the title refers to the analyst), a series of essays based on papers Jacobs has written over the last decade.

Historically, the criteria used by the American Psychoanalytic Association for granting certification focused on the applicant's ability to convey an understanding of the patient's mental state in the analytic process. During the last 8 years these criteria were expanded to include the applicant's understanding of the analyst's contribution to the analytic process.

Accordingly, we thought it would be useful to devote an issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry to the exploration of how Jacobs's ideas regarding the experience of the analyst have been elaborated during the last decade.

In the introduction to The Use of the Self, Jacobs outlines the origin of his interests as a reaction to a prevailing opinion that countertransference represented a problem of the analyst that required repair. This view made it impossible to confront and discuss the analyst's experience as modes of communication that could promote the analytic process.

Jacobs states that central to his views of the analyst's role is the concept of the analyzing instrument. The concept is associated with Isakower, who based his thinking on Freud's metaphor of the analyst who must turn his unconscious like a receiver to the transmitter of the patient's unconscious. Isakower elabora