Psychoanalytic Writing and Writing Psychoanalytically: A Discussion of Altstein’s “Finding Words”

Abstract

In this discussion of Rachel Altstein’s (this issue) “Finding Words: How the Process and Products of Psychoanalytic Writing Can Channel the Therapeutic Action of the Very Treatment It Sets Out to Describe,” I show how Altstein’s approach to psychoanalytic writing, in its content and in its process, has much in common with a psychoanalytic process per se. I explore the possibilities and limits of writing about a psychoanalytic process as a form of self supervision and self analysis. In particular, I explore the implications of a suddenly terminated therapy where a patient is not available to participate in the exploration of the enactment that occurred.

Keywords:

• enactment
• self-analysis
• self-supervision
• termination
• writing

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anthony Bass

Anthony Bass, PhD, is on the faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program, the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, the NIP National Training Program, and the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. He is a founding director of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and a joint Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Dialogues: The International Journal of Relational Perspectives.