The use of an audiotaped analysis in a continuous case seminar is evaluated. We compare this case seminar to the traditional one in which an analyst presents process notes, and find that the use of the tape lends itself readily to teaching microanalysis, principles of technique, and observation of affect. Listening to anonymous taped sessions allowed for the possibility of a freer climate for discussion, as none of the seminar participants had a personal relationship with the taped analyst. The disadvantages posed by the absence of the analyst during the seminar also are addressed.

An important area for psychoanalytic study is the significance for intrapsychic life of important events taking place in the community of which analyst and analysand are a part. September 11, 2001 provides a vantage point for examination of questions that arise from looking at the interrelationship between current environment and intrapsychic life. Two cases are presented as a focus for discussing the interaction of the memorialized past and occurrences in present reality, the significance for an analysis of analyst and patient sharing the same experience, instigations to progress that a current event may provide and the ways in which communal experience influences intrapsychic life. As a part of the discussion, we ask as well in what ways a common experience may be shared, and the significance of radically different meanings that the same event may have for analyst and analysand. We also pose the question whether the differences and similarities, each in their own way, may serve as progressive forces in the analysis.

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