Chapter 8.Intersubjectivity
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Excerpt
Psychoanalysis might have ended up being the simplest to describe of all psychological treatments. Patients talk as freely as they want and can. The analyst listens carefully and intervenes when he or she has something to say that has a reasonable chance of being useful to the patient—useful because it ultimately illuminates some aspect of how the patient’s mind works unconsciously. The patient, as subject, takes the analyst as object and through transference creates a phantasy analyst who will gratify wishes or be an obstacle to their fulfillment. The analyst, as subject, then takes the patient as object and applies the collective knowledge of the psychoanalytic community, in effect saying to the patient: “We know from psychoanalysis that the way your mind works to create these ideas and feelings about me and others is the following.” Then the analyst offers an interpretation.
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