Two papers describe self-analyses. In both papers trained analysts
describe their process of self-analyses, not programmatically, but by
illustration. Reading them won't give you a theoretical answer to
questions about how can one conduct a self-analysis, but you can
observe & deduce what specifically they thought made what they were
doing "analysis" rather than just concentrated self-reflection. They
each describe these attempts in contradistinction to, or elaboration
of, prior successful or unsuccessful analyses. The references are:
Austin Silber, "Analysis, Reanalysis, Self-Analysis," JAPA 44/2; and
Harry Guntrip, "My Experience of Analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott
(How Complete a Result does Psycho-Analytic Therapy Achieve?"
(available in Essential Papers in Object Relations). I also remember
seeing a book a few years ago that was a collection of papers in which
analysts talked about how they continued to analyze themselves, or at
least think about countertransference. in a way that was
self-analytic. I don't think those articles were particularly
theoretical either, though.
Silber, for example, talks about interpreting dreams, associations
that he makes in the process, about trying to deepen insights that he
either had during analysis, or which came to him afterward, which
seemed to be of the sort of insight he had with his analysts, as if
there were moments of revelation of some truth about himself, that had
a paradigmatically psychoanalytic feeling. In both cases, I think,
the sense of psychoanalyticality (sic) seems rooted at least partly in
the fact that the insights had to do with early childhood experiences
of great intensity, a shaking of perhaps comforting illusions--a
curtain opening to reveal hidden scenes.
I would think (& this is hypothetical, & therefore maybe not of much
use, since I'm not an analyst), that the ability to take a
quasi-analytic stance toward oneself would be a matter of temperament.
More, however, one's view of this would depend on whether you consider
analysis as primarily a method, a theory, or a relational event. You
can apply a method, perhaps less effectively, alone, but if the
eliciting of the transference/countertransference matrix is necessary
for analytic action, it would be impossible to proceed in solitary.
One might reimagine & reeact some of what took place in one's
analysis, & perhaps further psychic growth would be possible, but this
would be more an echo than an analysis. Perhaps one could have
insights about oneself that were quite profound & important, & even
had significance for other people (could be the basis for a theory,
for example, as in the case of Freud), but I think the core of
analysis is in the nexus of one's own interpretations/emotions & those
of someone else, almost as a living organism, as it had been
described.
Sophie Morandi
|