ABSTRACT
The patients described different experiences of engagement with their analysts. They used words like “fit”, “connection”, “receptive”, a “very powerful experience”, or “fantastic” and “nurturing”. Trust in the analyst and feeling respected in return was also of particular importance to the patients’ experiences of engagement. The patients have produced some very interesting thoughts about what they considered essential to facilitate a good analysis, and convey that evidence of listening is imparted through feedback. Some patients expressed how they were responded to in very positive and enriching ways, but others were left with feelings of “mediocre” non-engagement or what appeared to them as a “critical” or “punitive” silence. Working with the patient’s transference is the major part of all analytic work and, by its very nature, produces periods of varying states of distress and regression.
