ABSTRACT
In broad lines Freud’s view of the therapeutic relationship was: the patient revealing slowly to himself and to the analyst the buried feelings and impulses, which– pushed under–could not allow him to feel at one with himself. The therapeutic encounter is centered on the patient’s difficulties in living, but the therapist necessarily will be drawn into the process through his positive contributions, his interpretations, his impressions, his intuition, as well as through his errors. The therapist’s willingness to share with the patient that he has had experience with similar conflicts will often encourage a patient to cope with his pride or self-condemnation. The mutually developing openness and the sharing of the patient’s and therapist’s humanness is the core of the healing process: Healing occurs because two people share in openness of their living and of their “being” with each other. Often the therapist can help the patient beyond this anxiety, which is so common to man in our culture.
