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What's behind it? This question epitomizes an interpretative attitude which we believe is becoming generalized in psychiatric practice following the affirmation of a psychoanalytically-derived culture. We do not here propose to examine whether we are dealing with interpretations that are actually communicated to the patient or only formulated in the therapist's mind and communicated elsewhere. On the contrary we think it is important to point out that such interpretations are relevant to the theoretical foundations and to the approach towards the therapeutic relationship. Thus we are not concerned here with the accuracy or with the effectiveness of psychoterapeutic technique.
It would be simplistic to adopt a moralistic, stigmatizing attitude towards the noxious aspects of sadistic intrusiveness. Our task would be simplified if we took into account that this type of approach, which we propose to call “behindistic”, is equally active in relation to our colleagues. At this point, however, things would be rather complicated by our awareness of the unfortunate occurrence of phenomena of this kind in psychoanalytic circles themselves, although - hopefully - far less