The patient's experience of the analyst's subjectivity

Abstract

This article highlights the analysis of the patient's experience of the analyst's subjectivity in the psychoanalytic situation. Just as psychoanalytic theory has focused on the mother exclusively as the object of the infant's needs while ignoring the subjectivity of the mother, so, too, psychoanalysis has considered the analyst only as an object while neglecting the subjectivity of the analyst as the analyst is experienced by the patient. The analyst's subjectivity is an important element in the analytic situation, and the patient's experience of the analyst's subjectivity needs to be made conscious. Patients seek to connect to their analysts, to know them, to probe beneath their professional facade, and to reach their psychic centers much in the same way that children seek to connect to and penetrate their parents’ inner worlds. The exploration of the patient's experience of the analyst's subjectivity represents one underemphasized aspect of the analysis of transference, and it is an essential aspect of a detailed and thorough explication and articulation of the therapeutic relationship. The paper explores controversies regarding the analyst's self‐disclosure and countertransference.