The Place of Internalization of the Analyst in Analyses That Emphasize the Mutative Priority of Insight: A Developmental Perspective

Despite the extensive debate about the role that internalization of the analyst plays in analyses conducted from a more traditional perspective, and the increasing acknowledgment that both insight and the relationship with the analyst are important and coexisting mutative factors, most analysts who value insight continue to see interventions that influence the patient via the relationship as lamentable and leading to less stable change than insight alone. This continued belief ignores all that we have learned about the role that interaction and identification play in the development and modification of psychic structure throughout the developmental process. The historical origin of this belief is reviewed along with the evolution of views in analysts prioritizing verbal interpretation leading to insight as a mutative element. This paper also reviews the role of internalization in the formation and transformation of psychic structure during development. Finally, that role is applied to understanding the role of insight in therapeutic action in order to demonstrate that internalization is a crucial part of insight. Its importance is based on a recasting of insight as a process so that patients learn to observe and understand their mental processes, not just to decode latent mental content.