The Analyst's Theory in the Analyst's Mind

Each analyst is inevitably bound to and by his or her theories, to the techniques that follow from them, and to the complex and potentially problematic forces and vicissitudes of psychic life and the unconscious. Given this assumption as a starting point, I will describe and attempt to illustrate, using Ferro's Analytic Field Theory, the kinds of theories that may prove most useful to analysts, theories that emphasize process over content and that prepare the analyst's mind for their encounters with their patients. These theories are not the provenance of any one school of psychoanalysis, and extend beyond work with neurotic patients to those patients and areas of the mind that reflect weakened or unrepresented mental states and are in need, not simply of decoding and uncovering, but of mutual and intersubjective construction of thoughts, meanings, and links between mental elements.