On Claiming A Psychoanalytic Identity

Abstract

In this paper I describe how I have struggled to find a viable identity for myself as a “psychoanalytic psychotherapist.” Such clinical entities have been constructed by employing a particular logic, that of using parameters, which sets up an ideal of psychoanalytic practice from which all other forms of practice are meant to deviate. I argue, by means of a clinical example, that this way of thinking distorts our understanding of the analytic process. At an institutional level it deflects from the need to map out how we actually practice (rather than how we ought to practice), which we need to know so we can address real differences in approaches and levels of knowledge and skill.

Keywords:

• Psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• analytic identity
• session frequency
• parameters
• analytic process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laurence Spurling

Dr. Laurence Spurling is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in London, UK. He is Senior Lecturer in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of An Introduction to Psychodynamic Counselling (3rd ed. 2017, London: Palgrave) and The Psychoanalytic Craft: how to develop as a psychoanalytic practitioner (2015, London: Palgrave).