ABSTRACT
This chapter follows the theses, raised in Amati-Mehler, Argentieri and Canestri's book The Babel of the Unconscious, that in psychotherapy we find in our patients (and I would suggest also in the analysts) a phantasy of complete understanding. In psychoanalytic language a phantasy, in the individual mind and the myth it takes the form of an ideal past. The solution for development – to recognise the reality of limits in understanding which ties into the realisation of limits to omnipotence and the acceptance of separateness – is discussed with regards to working with English-speaking patients in group analysis.
