ABSTRACT
Traditionally, insight has been discussed as that which is to be imparted to analysands. Without insight their lives will be cursed with blind repetitions of their painful pasts. In this account, the analyst's role is to develop insight for them through interpretation. The analyst is the vehicle of understanding and, of course, the facilitator of those changes that will enable analysands to grasp and use insight adaptively. Optimally, the analyst talks to the analysand as someone with whom one is in a respectful, consequential, multidimensional conversation designed to increase mutual understanding, awareness of opportunities for change, and freedom to use these opportunities. In contrast, the implicitly lofty explanatory posture overexposes the analyst to negative countertransference as the rejected or misused authority who has been acting on fantasies of "benevolent and reassuring" analytic omniscience. The chapter on insight has been devoted to showing that reconsidering the question, "Insight for Whom?" raises significant technical and conceptual issues.
