Prologue: Psychoanalysis From the Inside—Our Own Analyses

The idea for this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry emerged from conversations with colleagues about our own analyses. It came into my mind that we are in a unique position to explore a treasure trove of first-person data and theorize psychoanalytic process and therapeutic actions from the inside—from inside our (often multiple) analyses and from inside our field. It was a small step to interest the creative and receptive editors of this journal in my idea of asking analysts to illuminate the complex and unique ways that growth happened in their own analyses and how the developmental process begun in analysis continued in time, often moving along in unforeseen, meandering, and creative ways. The process of creating this issue began.

It soon emerged that there was a long distance to travel between talking about our analyses to actually writing about them—no surprise here. Indeed many forces converge to reinforce our reality concerns and our resistances and discourage us from revealing what goes awry in our less-than-successful analyses, or what has been transformative in our successful ones, or what the (usual) balance between the two may have been, all unifying themes of the articles in this issue.

If we are to write in the first person about our analyses, we immediately encounter our narcissistic vulnerability with its accompanying shame and guilt. It is always a risk to expose our frailties and those of our analysts. But frailties are part of our own and our analysts' humanity. Then there are other risks. For some, writing about their analyses may provoke political consequences that could derail desired advancement in analytic institutes. And disclosing our own analytic experiences may have genuine impact on our analysts, on our present and future patients, and always on ourselves as we re-engage with what are often painful feelings.

Just as we thoughtfully and carefully consider the potential impact of personal