The Analyst’s Ambivalence About Continuing and Deepening an Analysis

Abstract

Of the many variables that affect an analyst's capacity to analyze, the analyst's ambivalence about analysis has received minimal attention. A previous paper (Ehrlich 2004) addressed how the analyst's ambivalence manifests itself in reluctance to recommend analysis and address the patient's resistances to the recommendation. The present paper examines the analyst's ambivalence about maintaining and deepening the analytic engagement. More specifically, it explores the analyst's conflicts around maintaining the analytic frame. A detailed clinical example illustrates how the analyst's continued scrutiny of her reluctance to maintain the analytic frame allowed a continuation of the analysis and a deepening of the analytic process. Given the current economic crisis and patients' increased propensity to use concerns about fee and frequency as a mode of resistance, it becomes increasingly important for analysts to recognize how their own ambivalence undermines their capacity to address those resistances effectively.

The Patient’s Objects in the Analyst’s Mind

“…L. Ehrlich (2004Ehrlich ( , 2010 discussed the importance of unconscious fears and inhibitions within the psychoanalyst that keep him or her from recommending and/or deepening an analysis. She suggests three major considerations in the analyst's reluctance to begin a new analysis: a defense against powerful affects, a co-created resistance, and a manifestation of the analyst's own conflicts.…”

The analyst's anxieties in the first interview: Barriers against analytic presence

“…In line with Rothstein, Ehrlich (, ) asks why analysts, who have struggled to obtain an analytical degree, do not subsequently establish an analytic practice. She is not convinced that this is caused by the attitude of society at large towards analysis, but rather that the prevalent, negative atmosphere surrounding analysis is used by the individual analyst to rationalize a resistance to initiate analyses.…”

The Analyst’s Hatred of Analysis

“…But even analysts with a better modulated internalization of psychoanalysis are susceptible to experiencing their analytic identity at times as punitive and shame-inducing. Ehrlich (2010) writes of "our confusion and shame at not understanding a patient at any given moment" and "our shame about the limitations of our skills and our method" (p. 517). In ways that do not necessarily reflect inexperience or personal idiosyncrasy, analysts are apt to experience themselves as repeatedly caught up in projective identifications and enactments that engender feelings of shame, guilt, and self-doubt (Feldman 2009;Goldberg and Grusky 2004).…”

“…Yet it is precisely because of the relative absence of data that we need strong beliefs and convictions to sustain us and to keep alive a necessary modicum of hopefulness and confidence in what we have to offer, even though, doctrinally, we demand of ourselves a suspicious attitude toward belief and conviction. Ehrlich (2010) writes of this paradox, noting that "unless we believe we can be helpful, we cannot engage optimistically in an analytic process. Yet we cannot know if we will be helpful until an analysis ends (and sometimes not even then)" (p. 517).…”