ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the effectiveness of analytic treatment can be greatly enhanced if we adopt an approach that emphasizes and strengthens the analysand's potential to make more effective use of the analyst. This requires that we eschew passive terminology and address the forward edge, dimensions of the analysand's communications and behaviors. It discusses how analysands are creative in their own change process. The chapter explores the role of the analyst and analytic treatment in facilitating and supporting the analysand's inherent motivation and creative capacity for self-reorganization and self-healing. It argues that the efficacy of any form of psychotherapy (analysis included) lies in the usefulness that it has for people as they make change within their selves and in their lives. The traditional view of the analysand as a passive participant in the analytic process and the analyst as the creative change agent has been central to our understanding of psychoanalytic practice.
