Chapter 18 Secret Conversations With My Father: The Psychological Dimension of Theoretical Discourse

This chapter continues my exploration of the multidimensionals impact of the analyst's subjectivity on the psychoanalytic enterprise. In a previous paper (Sucharov, 1996), I explored the implications of the central and continuous influence of the therapist's subjectivity on the analytic process. In that context, I presented case material that highlighted the additional dimension of understanding generated by a listening stance that focused on the empathic dance of patient and therapist. I had chosen the metaphor of dance in an earlier paper (Sucharov, 1998) to capture the mutuality of empathy and the interpenetration of experience in the analytic encounter.

The mutuality of the psychoanalytic process and the subsequent inclusion of the therapist's subjectivity as a legitimate focus for analytic investigation has been acknowledged widely in the recent psychoanalytic literature (Hoffman, 1991; Renik, 1993; Doctors, 1995; T. J. Jacobs, 1995; Knoblauch, 1995; Orange, 1995; Aron, 1996; Lachmann and Beebe, 1996; Rustin, 1997; L. M. Jacobs, 1998). However, the clinical importance of the subjectivity of the analyst receives its most extensive elaboration in Atwood and Stolorow's intersubjective systems theory, a broad framework dedicated to the development of a comprehensive theory of subjectivity. Their interest in subjectivity began with the recognition of the embeddedness of all psychological