ABSTRACT
Analysts, in the attempt to help patients, shoulder substantial burdens. They must provide a platform from which the patient can begin to sort through the false turns and recesses of personality. We can risk further metaphor and say the analyst is a kind of modern Atlas. Analysts are asked to bear the analysand’s transference and possess a firmness of vision that will allow them to distinguish distortion from reality. But when I think about Atlas with the world on his shoulders, I cannot help but wonder about his perch. On what does Atlas stand? In the analytic encounter we are faced with the same question as we strive to get our footing. Analysts, too, are bound to subjectivity, and any knowing gained is dependent on perspective, any action must rest on an implicit theory of value. If this is the case, then what keeps our feet from dangling in analytic work? To face this question is to grapple with the significance of the countertransference. The emergence of the countertransference serves as the clearest reminder to the analyst of the subjectivity of vision. These feelings push us back toward our self—they underline the limits of objectivity. But this is not to say that the presence of the countertransference is cause for grief. The merely human is also the basis of our humanity and in the countertransference lies the possibility of a living analysis. I see this as a critical question of analytic technique: How should analysts make use of their emotional response to the patient? To pursue an answer is to try to find an adequate foundation as we do this work.
