ABSTRACT
The anxiety that many therapists feel in relation to the demands of a persecutory analytic superego interferes with their availability to patients and can result in an inhibited, artificial or even sadistic approach to clinical work. This chapter explores the factors that contribute to the development of the analytic superego, showing how anxieties that are inherent within clinical work can be reinforced by training and by the ‘organisation in the mind’ of psychoanalytic culture and institutions. I suggest the development of a truly analytic attitude involves replacing superego constraints (or rebellion) with ego judgement so that ‘boundaries’ become lodged not in rules but in the analyst’s own thinking mind.
