Appreciation of the Importance of the Patient–Analyst “Match”
Judy L. Kantrowitz, PhD
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
In her 1938 paper, “Notes on the Psychoanalytic Significance of the Choice of Analyst,” Clara Thompson proposes that the personality of the analyst plays a role in the therapeutic result in psychoanalysis and observes that this fact was seldom (or ever?) reported. Providing detailed reflections on how particular personal characteristics of the analyst may impede certain patients and benefit others, she concludes that how these characteristics affect the outcome of treatment depends on the nature of the patient’s difficulties. Furthermore, sometimes, the nature of what I have called “the match” between patient and analyst, while initially detrimental to the analytic work, later can be facilitating to the process. Such transformations occur when analysts, through self-analysis or more personal analytic treatment, recognize how their personal difficulties contribute to an impasse and change in their interactions with this patient. To the best of my knowledge, it would be almost 50 years later before any observations of a similar nature appeared in a mainstream psychoanalytic journal (Kantrowitz, 1987)<…>
Psychiatry, 79:1, 23-28, May 2016.
Link to Online Fulltext Publication
Previous Posts:
Holly M. Blatman (2015). Three Analysts on Freud’s “Observations on Transference-Love”. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 63/5:977-990.
Judith A. Yanof (2015). L.I.E.: An Adolescent’s Rocky Road To Mourning. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 96/4:1169–1181 (also posted under Film Series).
Fred Busch (2015). Our Vital Profession. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 96/3:553-568.
Rafael D. Ornstein (2015). Seeing Through the Fog: Learning to Work with Dissociation. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 35:257–270.
Nancy, J. Chodorow (2015). From the Glory of Hera to the Wrath of Achilles: Narratives of Second-Wave Masculinity and Beyond. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 16: 261–270.
Rona Knight (2014). Free to Be You and Me: Normal Gender-Role Fluidity—Commentary on Diane Ehrensaft’s “Listening and Learning from Gender-Nonconforming Children” Related Papers. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 68:57-70.
Rita K. Teusch (2015). Sadomasochistic Relations Between Ego and Superego in Anorexic Patients. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 32/1: 191-212, October 2015.
Anthony D. Bram and Jed Yalof (2015). Quantifying Complexity: Personality Assessment and Its Relationship With Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Inquiry. 35, 74-97.
Mary Anderson (2015) The Conscious Heart: On the Act of Creation and the Compassionate Teachings of Art. Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Vol 43, No 1-2, pp. 21-31.
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