Clinical Discussants as Psychoanalytic Readers

Abstract

Psychoanalytic discussants of clinical papers face certain tasks, opportunities, and difficulties. To be willing to present and publish their analytic work for colleagues to study, analyst-authors and discussants need to expect that the other will respectfully complement his or her perspective. Discussants are encouraged to immerse themselves playfully in the affective force-field constituted between analysand and analyst within the process of the presentation. As discussants struggle to extricate themselves from this force-field, they contribute best by confining their understandings to the presentation process rather than trying to pin down the actual psychoanalytic situation. When this is done, discussants are under less pressure to inform presenters. This paper considers how discussants need to process their feeling responses to clinical papers so as to enhance rather than injure the analyst-author. This approach is illustrated with vignettes of the author's efforts as a clinical discussant to become a constructive psychoanalytic reader.

The “Voice” of the Analysand and the “Subject” of Diagnosis

“…And, by invoking these, are we entering the self-indulgent, fictitious, autobiographical zone of infinite regress where nothing good is to be gained for the psychoanalytic project? Coen's (2000) thesis on the functions of a discussant comes close to our view of the role of a collaborator. What the second author can do is to play at the text and engage in a dialogue with the analyst-author the way a discussant should ideally approach an analytic work.…”

“…We are also in no epistemological position to entertain what had actually transpired in Ms. French's second analysis. In this sense we are playing at the text of her correspondence (Coen, 2000). We are also certain that most readers can easily-and eagerry-point to what the two analysts are doing wrong in this particular case.…”

My Space/Our Space: Commentary on Danielle Knafo’s “Guys and Dolls: Relational Life in the Technological Era”

“…That, of course, may have little to do with the actual treatment. Be aware that I am playing with this report, as a report, not as if this were actually what transpired between patient and analyst (Coen, 2000a(Coen, , 2000b. That gives me the freedom and creative space to play with what is presented in this article with less concern about what is and is not veridical.…”