Self-Disclosure from the Perspective Of Intersubjectivity Theory

In an earlier contribution (Orange, Atwood, and Stolorow, 1997), we explained that the concept of practice better describes psychoanalytic clinical work than does the venerable notion of technique. We argued that although technique and technical rationality are appropriate in working with things without minds, where more variables can be controlled and experimentation can be replicated, practice and practical wisdom better suit work with human beings. It is no accident that people speak of the “practice” of law and medicine.1

The misapplication of the concept of technique in psychoanalysis is nowhere more evident than in discussions of self-disclosure. Only by conceiving of psychoanalysis primarily as an empirical science requiring rigid controls over intervening variables could we imagine that self-disclosure could be regulated by rule or precept or even by “technical recommendation.” Nevertheless, generations of analytically oriented teachers and supervisors have sought to protect the process from contamination by insisting that analysts remain anonymous, just as workers at computer chip companies don white coveralls