ABSTRACT

Psychoanalysis is an endeavour of the heart and the mind. The therapist cannot help but be profoundly affected by her patients. Theory is a structure which enables the therapist to be with the patient during the difficult and incomprehensible times. Theory is like a skeleton on which the layers and layers of other systems with their own mechanisms create the kind of complexity required when trying to understand the human subject. The practice of psychotherapy is extremely beautiful and often very moving. Within the therapy relationship there can be tenderness, belligerence, anguish, despair, depression, love, hope, longing, disappointment, anger, passion and grace. In the context of brief therapy it is the psychological dimensions that appear to the fore: the individual's struggle to come to terms with a traumatic event, the brutal collapse of innocence, the way in which the forced confrontation with personal values stimulates a certain kind of emotional growth.