Empathy is perception and interpretation (and who ever said it wasn't?). Reply to Ghent and Stern
(1995)
Linguistic philosophy provides conceptual tools by which psychoanalysis can redefine its conditions of productive discourse. In particular, the idea of performative contradictions permits ready noting of obstructions to that discourse. The present paper means to develop an adequate vocabulary defining the conditions of what is essentially analytic and the positive events accompanying them. These conditions can be seen as systematic substitutions for such recommendations as anonymity and neutrality.
The experience of selfhood is that of struggle, between conflicting demands, inevitable dilemmas, and shifting allegiances toward deciding what is for us. The complex nature of this struggle often makes the boundaries between health and sickness ambiguous. Therapeutic work is significantly dependent on the capacity to engage with such struggles. This is illustrated by two striking examples of successful work, as well as my own two analyses, and other clinical material.
This paper discusses what the author feels are the principal American influences on contemporary psychoanalysis. These include a growing tendency for nonhierarchical relationships in treatment, some extension of freedom of speech to clinicians, a place for management in the structuring of clinical relationships, and an increasing emphasis on aspirations and the future.