ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysts are neither research scientists objectively observing inter-personal processes, nor are they medical practitioners applying procedures. In 1896, when S. Freud coined the term “psychoanalysis”, he created a technique specifically applicable to patients with mental disorders. Scholars from outside of psychoanalysis have similarly commented on the artistic, even theatrical, elements of the field. I. Hoffman’s dialectical-constructivist model of the psychoanalytic process offers a descriptive view without adhering to a specific psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalysis did not arise, as if by magic, from Freud’s writings. Its roots lie in millennia of writings in philosophy, history, political science, literature, and more. Psychoanalytic practice resides firmly in the realm of humanities, specifically art, and more specifically performance art. Psychoanalysts may struggle to embrace primarily artistic nature of their clinical work. They creatively work to help patients to grow, to create, and to come into being.
