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Analytic treatment requires constant vigilance. The human mind is so complex, and the dialectics of the interpersonal situation between analyst and patient so fraught with boundary invasions, that the terrain of the analytic investigation often becomes quite muddy. Like most other systems, as it developed, psychoanalysis produced by-products that tended to slow down its progress. A case in point is procedure. Procedure was originally intended to be kept as simple and constant as possible in order to minimize confusion. As Eissler4 advocates: “I think, where there are alternatives, the simpler a technique is, the more it is to be preferred.” Alexander,1 on the other hand, advocated greater flexibility.
… the dynamic axis of psychoanalytic therapy is the corrective emotional experience which the patient obtains in the transference on an optimal level, such as changing the frequency of interviews according to the state of analysis, correctly timed interpretations, and encouraging the required kind of extratherapeutic experiences…. The principle which is stressed is that of flexibility in preference to routine.
Recognizing that the human condition is too complex to deal with in a rigid manner, Freud9 clearly expressed his views on analytic techniques in the following passage from his detailed article, “On Beginning the Treatment.”
I think I am well advised, however, to call these rules “recommendations” and not to claim any unconditional acceptance for them. The extraordinary diversity of the psychical constellations concerned, the plasticity of all mental processes and the wealth of determining factors oppose any mechanization of the technique, and they bring it about that a course of action that is as a rule justified may at times prove
Page 69ineffective, whilst one that is usually mistaken may once in a while lead to the desired end.
It is from the latter viewpoint that the use and integration of the double session within the framework of analytic therapy will be discussed he