ABSTRACT

Ego's striving for closeness with the ego ideal produces feelings of self-acceptance and goodness. To be more precise, though, both "goodness" and "badness" appear essential components of human nature that can be exaggerated, diminished, re-directed, and modified by early environmental stimuli. While technical errors originating in "moral countertransference" attract greater attention, the helpful role played by human "goodness" in the conduct of analytic treatment is by no means trivial. The analyst's "goodness" serves as a screen on which the projections and externalizations of the patient's "badness" can be witnessed, understood, and interpreted. A closely related issue is that of the analyst's capacity and willingness to gracefully receive the patient's "goodness", which comes to him in many forms. Manifestations of "goodness" on the patient's part sometimes need analytic exploration and sometimes plain and simple acceptance. The importance of "the capacity to have pleasure in one's patient's pleasure" can hardly be overemphasized.