This paper presents a detailed description of the psychoanalytic identity, whose nucleus is the psychic representation of psychoanalysis in the internal world of the analyst--i.e., psychoanalysis as an internal object. Psychoanalytic training is, of course, crucial to the development of a psychoanalytic identity, but as a result of ambivalence, the psychoanalytic identity is apt to be diluted both during training and after. This process is reinforced by the worldwide trend for analysts to analyze fewer cases. The so-called crisis in psychoanalysis, usually referring to the problem of too few analytic patients and too few analytic candidates, is first and foremost a crisis in ourselves and, in particular, in our psychoanalytic identity. The author presents examples and causes of an unstable psychoanalytic identity, along with suggestions for ameliorative measures.

Aspects of the analyst's person may facilitate or, conversely, inhibit the establishment of analytic contact. The author argues that the analyst's trust in psychoanalysis as a method, which is a component of analytic identity, is a crucial element in the analyst's functioning during the initial interviews. Trust is here distinguished from belief After a historical outline of the transition from indication to the initiation of psychoanalyses as an interactive process, trust as an analytic concept is discussed, both in general terms and with specific reference to the initial interviews. An extended clinical vignette is provided for illustration.

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This paper presents 'the shame of existing' as a form of shame that is deeper and more extensive than those customarily encountered. 'The shame of existing' is defined as shame about existing as we are and especially at the fact that we are. It is accompanied by merciless and total rejection of the subject's self and by feelings of extreme worthlessness and inferiority coupled with the all-pervasive conviction that it would be better not to exist. On the basis of clinical material, consideration is given to the specific transference and countertransference aspects of analyses in which the shame of existing constitutes an important part of the patient's pathology. Disturbance of handling and holding by the primary objects right from birth is suggested as the earliest developmental basis of the shame of existing. This disturbance is attributed to hate and rejection of the infant by the primary objects and to the infant's not being touched emotionally and physically and not having its right to exist acknowledged. The paper begins with an introduction to shame as an affect and as a concept in psychoanalytic theory.

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