ABSTRACT
Salman Akhtar, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College, and training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and Psychoanalytic Quarterly. Dr Akhtar was quite candid about his clinical work, and, as expected, a great storyteller. His openness invites discussion of the issue of anonymity. Dr Akhtar didn’t tell his patient whether he was Muslim, and then learned that she was convinced that he was supporting Palestinian terrorism. Dr Akhtar is not concerned about anonymity outside the hour, as evidenced by this interview. Traditionally, analysts have worried about that, arguing that being a blank slate leaves their patients freer to project their conflicts onto them, and into the analytic relationship.
