Appreciation of the Importance of the Patient–Analyst “Match”

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Notes

^1. It is noteworthy in terms of the history of this idea of patient–analyst match that I submitted my paper on this topic to three major psychoanalytic journals—The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, The Journal of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and The Psychoanalytic Quarterly—prior to it being accepted for publication by The Annual of Psychoanalysis. The editor of one of these other journals wrote a letter informing me that I had “an unusual idea about psychoanalysis,” that I believed that both making the unconscious conscious and something about the relationship with the analyst created the therapeutic action. The letter stated that I needed to choose. I felt I had been read correctly and understood. I had to continue to seek publication in a different journal, which I did. To be fair in my representation of my own institute, the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, they did award me the Felix and Helene Deutsch Scientific Paper award in 1985 for this paper.

^2. In Thompson’s text all references to the analyst are as “he.” I could not resist making the cultural update by changing these references to he or she.

^3. A waiver to be trained as a clinical psychoanalyst was granted by a Committee on Research/Special Training, (CORST) by the American Psychoanalytic Association to nonmedical candidates who were engaged in, or would engage in, research related to psychoanalysis.

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Notes on contributors

Judy L. Kantrowitz

Judy L. Kantrowitz, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, and an associate clinical professor in psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, in Brookline, Massachusetts.