Writing, Rewriting, and Working Through

Abstract

This article describes the process of writing about one's clinical work using the help of a writing mentor. A variety of impediments and interferences to clinical writing are examined in detail. The author demonstrates the ways that these may reflect unconscious responses in the analyst and can affect the style of the writing, ultimately obscuring clear communication to the reader. In the first half of the article, the author describes his own work as a writing mentor for analysts both during and after training, and presents detailed illustrations of the mentoring experience and the specific techniques he finds useful. In the second half of the article, the author uses the evolution of this article as a case study to show how he worked through, over several drafts, various interferences and resistances in his own writing with the help of an individual writing mentor and a writing group.

Notes

The author thanks Daniel Jacobs, Judy Kantrowitz, Malkah Notman, and Judith Yanof for their careful readings and helpful suggestions over several drafts of this article, and Judith Bernstein for her significant contributions and guidance.

¹The elaboration of this method is described in my article (this issue) on pp. 433–499.