ABSTRACT
The necessary character of the rules that determine the particulars of the analytic situation, the goal of the study of its dynamics, the aim of the instrument of psychoanalysis, interpretation, the core of the specific process of cure: all this is insight. Given the crucial importance of this phenomenon, we cannot help wondering why insight has not been the object of more systematic specific studies and why its concept has not yet been more clearly delineated. This chapter examines the function of insight within the analytic situation, starting from the generally accepted tenet among analysts since Freud that insight is the essential goal of all analytic processes. The analytic situation is, essentially, a bipersonal situation. The analytic situation is essentially ambiguous. The dynamics of the analytic situation—or of the primary structure that we later define as transference/countertransference—depend on two things: the primary field structured as a common “gestalt” with the analyst’s and the patient’s unconscious material and the analyst’s interpretation.
