ABSTRACT
Joseph D. Lichtenberg is a member of the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis and Founder and Director Emeritus of the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He was President of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology. Dr Lichtenberg’s approach to patients seems a bit different from the approaches of the other analysts we interviewed. He wants to help his patients to feel better. Dr Lichtenberg hadn’t disagreed with Hans Loewald’s comment that his first analyst had been holding his hand. Dr Lichtenberg also wants to help his patients to feel better about themselves. He sees the empathic connection that he and his patient can experience with each other as itself transformative. Dr Lichtenberg suddenly shut down for two months in his first analysis, which his analyst attributed to his unconsciously registering her new pregnancy.
