Discussion of Contributions to Psychoanalytic Inquiry Issue on Analytic Writing

• Published in: Psychoanalytic inquiry 2008-09, Vol.28 (4), p.510-517
• Main Author: Jacobs, Theodore J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Inquiry method; Psychoanalysis; Report writing; Writing
• ISSN: 0735-1690; 1940-9133
• DOI: 10.1080/07351690802212819

If [a physician] possess native sagacity, and a nameless something more, let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeably prominent characteristics of his own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations be received without tumult, and acknowledged not so often by our uttered sympathy, as by silence, an inarticulate breath, and here and there a word, to indicate that all is understood; if, to these qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his recognized character as a physician;-then, at some inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow forth in a dark but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries into the daylight, [p. 124] The task of the analytic writer describing the treatment situation is to bring this process to life, to bring the reader into the consultation room, and to depict in rich detail what has transpired there; and, it is his task both to portray and to help his reader understand the sweep, the movement of analytic work. [...] belying Freud's own words about the impossibility of rendering the analytic process understandable through the written word, his remarkable case reports have brought the Wolf Man, the Rat Man, Little Hans, and Dora, alive in a way that has allowed generations of students not only to become acquainted with the analytic method, but to obtain a vivid and engaging picture of what actually took place in Freud's consulting room.