The Vibrant Challenges of Clinically Effective Psychoanalytic Mindedness

Abstract

In addressing the central challenges of developing and maintaining the analyst's psychoanalytic mindedness, this paper focuses on two particularly challenging core components of clinical effectiveness not so easily developed despite the rigors of the tripartite training model. The first is the analyst's receptivity to unconscious communication, which entails the analyst's curiosity, acceptance of human nature, doubt, restraint, narcissistic balance, and integrity. A brief clinical vignette illustrates this. The second factor is recognizing and managing the inherent disappointments and narcissistic challenges in working psychoanalytically. The author maintains that the ability to lose and subsequently recover one's analytic mind entails discipline, courage, and faith that only experience can provide.

Constructions and their Amendments in the Supervisory Process

“…The emergence of supervisory constructions in the supervisory discourse comprises two basic stages. At first, similarly to therapists, supervisors navigate between conscious and unconscious processes while searching for the meanings of the supervisory material in their minds (Diamond, ). Next, they begin to organize the many impressions and reflections in rudimentary meaning systems, embedded within a theoretical framework.…”