How Can a Writer Describe the Deep Emotional Experience of a Psychoanalysis? “As One Forms One's Preconceptions of a Cathedral by the Height of Its Bell Tower”

Abstract

This article is devoted to the importance of interpersonal and phenomenological perspectives in writing about an analytic relationship that can convey the emotional depth and intensity necessary for the analysis to be successful enabling the patient to alter her life. The writer should be able to describe the interactive experiences of the patient and analyst as two whole people motivated to create greater coherence to their experiences or how the analyst and patient have worked together to enable the patient to transform fragmented parts of his or her story into a narrative that can be told to the analyst. By using examples from a case conference on writing about what occurred in an analysis, I highlight some of the principles that are described in the article.