The personal role of the psychoanalyst in dealing with the developmental endeavours of the patient

ABSTRACT

The personal role of the analyst is generally recognized to be of significance in psychoanalytic treatment. The concept of the analyst as a new object is rather widely accepted, including an activated emotional attitude in the analyst towards the patient. The aim of the article is to demonstrate by means of two clinical vignettes the significance of the personal attitude of the analyst in promoting analytic change. In the case descriptions of the article the personal attitude of the analyst comes out in the recognition and implicit acceptance of the activated developmental endeavours of the patient. In doing this the analyst also let it be implicitly understood by the patient, that his attitude as a new object is at the same time also a generally valid human response to his/her actualized developmental endeavour. It is further argued, that today the vastly studied psychoanalytic developmental theory when applied into the psychoanalytic treatment gives additional support to the view of the scientific grounds of psychoanalyses.

KEYWORDS:

• Complimentary response
• developmentally valid
• generally valid
• implicitness
• personal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Volkan (2010) enumerates the following psychoanalysts, who have adopted the concept of the new object (the idea, but using various formulations of it), mentioning also those, who used the concept before Loewald: Strachey 1934, Heimann 1956, Cameron 1961, Giovacchini 1972, Kernberg 1975, Volkan 1975,Tähkä (1993),Volkan and Ast 1994. I use here the concept by Veikko Tähkä: the new developmental object.

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Notes on contributors

Jukka Välimäki

Jukka Välimäki, MD, training analyst and past president of the Finnish Psychoanalytic Society. Former chairman of the Training committee. The Finnish editor of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review 1979–1989. Worked in private practice.