Risk and Potential in Analytic Disclosure

Abstract

The author explores the multiple meanings for her of analyst disclosures and the application of a fixed analytic frame. She challenges the idea that most analytic rules, outside of the context of a particular and ever-changing clinical situation, can universally hold true. She believes that questions pertaining to “right” and “wrong” are, perhaps, an inapt line of inquiry in this regard. Drawing material from reflections on her own developmental history in relation to disclosure and risk, as these factors play out in the dyadic interactions of a particular, out-of-the-ordinary, highly charged clinical case, she highlights a distinction between a potentially inappropriate application of generic analytic “rules” and a necessary steadying personal connection with a hierarchy of ethical principles.

Keywords:

• frame
• technique
• ethics
• disclosure
• confidentiality
• intersubjectivity
• trauma
• boundaries