ABSTRACT
The first psychoanalysts were doctors; analysts with an academic background but no medical training were termed lay analysists or non-medical analysts, and often had lower status than analysts with a medical background. Techne is the Greek term for ability, referring to capabilities and actions. In this context we also extend the term to include its opposite, that is, non-doing and inability. Wilfred R. Bion emphasizes that the process of working towards a state of no illusions between analyst and analysand is not "sub-scientific" but rather super-scientific; "O" is within reach and thus transformation or creation and growth can take place. Bion refers to the oedipal triangle both as factually and desirably present as a model for all therapeutic sessions; thus that which takes place in therapy becomes personal verbalizations or conceptualizations of a three-way relationship. Freud has used the discipline of archaeology as a model of the work unfolding in therapy and Bion—equally inspired by Freud—used medicine.
