ABSTRACT
It is now commonly accepted that patients' perceptions about their analysts, while introduced in the context of the particular transference meaning that they have for the patient, may often reflect accurate characterizations of the analyst or the analyst's behavior. The “trigger” for the patient's reaction comes from the analyst, while the meaning the patient attaches to what she or he has perceived resides in the patient's own psychological history and struggles (Gill, 1982; Hoffman, 1983). In other words, what the patient says about the analyst is simultaneously about the analyst and not about the analyst. Many analysts realize, and now most analysts have come to acknowledge, that they are active participants in the analytic work, that their subjectivity is inevitable (Renik, 1993), as are their enactments of conflicts (Boesky, 1982; Chused, 1991; McLaughlin, 1991). Once analysts accept that their personal characteristics are revealed as part of the process, whether in a role-responsive way (Sandler, 1976) or in more subtle characterological forms (Baudry, 1991; Kantrowitz, 1993, 1995), they are able to make productive use of their patient's observations to deepen the patient's analytic work but also potentially to learn something about themselves. Their patients' interpretations of their character and behavior then become a source of data for them about themselves.
