Failures in Psychoanalytic Treatment edited by Joseph Reppen and Martin A. Schulman

ISBN: 978-1-949093-06-3

From Joseph Reppen and Martin A. Schulman’s Introduction

Analysts frequently discuss but rarely write about their clinical failures, even though all analysts have experienced failures. Oberndorf (1948) stated, “the goal which the patient aims to attain through treatment does not always coincide with that which the psychoanalyst hopes to achieve and neither of these estimates may correspond to that which the patient’s family or friends would consider a desirable outcome” (p. 14). We must add a caveat to Obemdorf’s statement. The term psychoanalyst has always reflected individual differences among prac¬titioners. It is not, however, a unitary concept, either theoretically or therapeutically. What holds for each and every one of the perspectives and models that define contemporary psycho¬analysis is a dialectical unity of opposites. We cannot discuss “failure” without also defining “success.” The evolving history of how psychoanalysis views success or failure would require a book-length treatise. We shall, therefore, present a cursory overview of historical trends, necessarily omitting many important contributions.