Author Description

In the practice of his profession, the analyst is daily confronted with problems, for whose solution neither theoretical knowledge nor practical experience alone is adequate. It can be said that all questions of technique cluster around the one essential question, namely whether and how a clearly defined technique of analytic treatment can be deduced from the psychoanalytic theory of psychic illness. It is the question of the possibilities and limits of the application of theory to practice. However, in view of the fact that analytic practice itself does not yield the theory of psychic processes until practical tasks have been set, we have, to proceed correctly, to seek out the avenues which lead from purely empirical practice, pass through theory, and terminate in a theoretically well-grounded practice. Vast experience in the Vienna Seminar for Psychoanalytic Therapy and in monitored analytic sessions has shown that we have hardly progressed beyond the preliminary work toward the solution of the problem sketched above. It is true that we have the basic material, the so-called ABC of analytic technique, in Freud's various essays and his scattered remarks on the subject; and the very informative works on technique by Ferenczi and other writers have increased our understanding of many individual problems of technique. Generally speaking, however, there are just as many techniques as there are analysts, notwithstanding Freud's commonly shared, partially positive and partially negative suggestions, which are few compared with the welter of questions centered on practice.