Psychoanalytic therapy is predicated on the establishment of a unique space, a bounded formlessness that is open for the exploration of meaning and motivation. The patient says what is on his mind and the fact that the analyst does not respond in the concrete manner of daily life establishes the space as a unique ontological realm in which anything can be said and nothing is off limits. In a Winnicott’s felicitous phrase, this is described as a “potential space.” The psychoanalytic process requires this unique space, but some patients cannot tolerate such a space because it feels empty and lonely to them. They seek the breakdown of the boundary between themselves and the analyst, so they experience the space between object contacts not as a potential space, but as a void. They desire a connection without boundaries and an obliteration of the space between themselves and the analyst. This desire means the destruction of the very space on which the analysis rests. This perplexing clinical situation creates unique technical problems for the analyst and the analysand. For the patients who cannot separate, the only relationship that matters to them would erase the analytic space. This paper delineates an analytic approach and a clinical illustration is used for showing the therapeutic approach designed to unlock this dilemma.
Frank Summers
. When the Analytic Space is Closed, is Analysis Success Possible?[J]. Psychological Communications, 2022
, 5(2)
: 165
-173
.
DOI: 10.12100/j.issn.2096-5494.222026
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