ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the complex and mysterious properties of the analytic relationship as a healing agent by opening up the concept of needed relationship and exploring its implications in various contexts. The phrase needed relationship, refers to the fact that the psychoanalytic relationship is first a special human relationship that forms over time between patient and analyst: It is a special relationship that carries the healing power of psychoanalytic treatment and makes psychoanalysis unique among the healing vocations. The concept of needed relationship is intended as a more balanced overall conceptual and therapeutic frame for relational psychoanalysis. An admittedly elusive concept, the needed analytic relationship has meaning as a conceptual frame or meta-principle for imagining and doing analytic work, and as a descriptor of actual clinical interaction, either in the present moment of analytic exchange or cumulatively over time.
