ABSTRACT
Analysts of other persuasions have had their own problems with this concept, having so often found that they differ among themselves when hearing clinical presentations as to whether the analyst is indeed working in a neutral manner. The traditional psychoanalytic usage of neutrality implies an unacknowledged commitment to philosophical realism. The analyst's neutral relatedness neither requires nor even favors direct, yielding responsiveness to the analysand's conscious and unconscious wishes. The analyst is not in an either/or situation of compliance, challenge, or reassurance on the one hand and, on the other, silent and remote refusal. Everyday life and work in other occupations provide abundant evidence that debunking neutrality requires blinding oneself to the capacity shown by relatively mature, un-conflicted persons to do their work competently at times of complex and perhaps intense and intimate emotionality.
