Patient-therapist relationship in psychoanalysis

Abstract

The different aspects of the relationship between analyst and patient have not been paid much attention during Freud’s lifetime and the following decades. Research concentrated mainly on intrapsychic processes (“One-person-psychology”). Therefore the discrepancy between theory of technique and Freud’s personal analytic practice was not clarified, with some negative consequences. Based on the present state of knowledge in developmental psychology, a second part describes the high degree of involvement of autoregulation and mutual regulation in development and shaping of psychic structures from earliest infancy onward. In a third part attempts are made at integrating these findings of developmental psychology in to the theory of therapy; for this purpose, an additional meaning in terms of the interactive dimension is given to central psychoanalytic concepts such as defence, resistance, transference, and interpretation.

Keywords
Psychoanalysis, therapeutic relationship, psychotherapeutic process, developmental psychology.