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I am grateful to Henrik Enckell for his instructive comment (Enckell, 2002) on my paper ‘The moment and the next step’ (Lotz, 2001).
The discussion concerns the attitude to patients with pathology of defect. I argued that a more active, personally involved attitude was preferable to a classical, strictly neutral stance. Enckell summarises my argumentation and makes a comparison with the Finnish psychoanalyst V. Tähkä.
Tähkä said that a patient with deficit pathology will mature through identifications brought about by ‘empathic descriptions’. These descriptions differ from the thoughts of the analysand as “the empathic descriptions proceed from a general representational level that these patients have not yet obtained” (Enckell, 2002, p. 154). The analyst will avoid imposing personal preferences on the analysand as “according to this [method], the patient does not, in the end, identify with the analyst as such (or with which he as a person could suggest) but with the functions performed by him — and these functions represent an elaborated, general representational structure”. “Through this [the analyst's] description, which is represented in words derived from a relatively well-structured mental configuration, the analysand may implement a process through which he can acquire representational means” (ibid.).
The recommendations advanced by Tähkä are based on a high degree of caution. The helpfulness in his attitude seems to be the closeness and empathy of a fellow human being, a person who is willing to share feelings almost without pointing to differences. The reasons for this caution seem to be good. Some analysands have a weak identity and are very vulnerable, and the psychoanalytic method can push them into a regressive state. Under such circumstances, much can be destroyed by a procedure which is even a little officious — actually, any intervention can be felt as a violation.
It seems that Enckell prefers Tähkä's more cautious recommendations rather than my own. As