ABSTRACT
The analytic treatment of adult patients who are parents often comes upon problems in regard to their child. Ordinarily the analyst does not give advice to his patients in analysis. Although he regularly makes use of his knowledge of child development, he does not generally function as an “expert” or as an “educator” in the analytic situation. Giving advice is not identical with self-revelation, although, as in all other interventions the analyst makes, something is revealed. Advice tends to undermine the uncertainty that analysis thrives on. When uncertainty exceeds useful bounds, however, whether caused from within the patient or brought about by some external event, anxiety may be beyond the reach of ordinary interpretive interventions to sustain the analytic process. The action of giving advice may directly interfere with the process of free association.
