The psychoanalyst and the art of practicing

the nature of the link

Abstract

Through a clinical case, the author examines the relation between the nature of the link and the art of practicing. He regards the therapeutic link as an essential condition in the development of the treatment. He believes that the art of practicing would have its origin on the therapist’s ability in finding a way of having a link with his patient, so that the treatment gets satisfactory results. The author points out that to achieve these objectives, many times it is necessary to sacrifice the method he was previously proposed to follow. Next, he examines the main changes in the psychoanalytical models, which modified many analysts’ activities of late years. He calls attention mainly to the transition of Freud’s determinist method into the Melanie Klein’s method. This method is to be descriptive, but becomes an explaining method. Afterwards he calls attention to the narrative model developed by Spence and Schafer, which among other characteristics emphasizes the changes in the therapist’s activity when facing the patient’s narratives. Among them, they privilege the relation of the transferential “here and now” upon the historical past and in this way they come closer to the kleinian model. However, the fact of preconizing that the analyst’s activity should happen from the position of unknowing brings them closer to Bion's analytical model, where there is nothing to explain and a lot to describe about the psychic reality. According to Bion, the describing interpretation invites to thinking in common, so that patient and therapist may progress in the sense of searching for new questions and narratives that are going to extend the psychic reality perception field. To conclude, the author tries to present his interpretation in what consists the art of practicing. In his opinion, the art lays in the analyst’s ability in establishing simultaneous dialogs with multiple and contradictory narratives, without invalidating any of them, having the aim of always finding a new question that gives opportunities to other inquiries. These considerations are illustrated in the development of the clinical case presented.