Psychoanalysis Preparatory to Psychotherapy

Abstract

The author explores a variety of issues related to the patient's return to analysis, particularly with his former analyst. Among the issues that are explored are the complex tensions between hope and limitation that accompany the patient's return. Returning patients often seem to reflect a kind of postoedipal relationship toward their former analyst to the extent that they may see the analyst a bit more clearly through the transferential woods. The author examines decisions between patient and analyst regarding frequency and the constructed attitudes that each hold toward the nature and value of therapeutic regression. Also explored is a concept he terms “infinite regret.” The ubiquitous nature of regret requires analyst and patient to examine what sorts of conscious and unconscious fantasies the patient holds in regard to changing and undoing previous decisions and previously held self-states that he might regret. Resumed analysis can serve to perpetuate these unconscious fantasies or allow for a further grieving and mourning process to help in their resolution.