Psychoanalyst with a gift for teasing out the underlying assumptions of her patients
The psychoanalyst Irma Brenman Pick, who has died aged 89, examined the work that analysts need to do on their own emotional reactions (and non-reactions) to the patient. A key idea in analysis is transference: the patient projecting feelings – love, anger, dependence and so on – on to the analyst. The traditional view, implied by Sigmund Freud, was that analysts should not allow themselves to be troubled by emotions aroused in this sort of way, and that if they do the result is likely to be a transference distortion in reverse – a “counter-transference”. Going along this path, many believed, interferes with the calm neutrality required of the analyst. Irma felt that such experiences are inevitable.
Working Through in the Countertransference (1985), reprinted in Authenticity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter (2018), a collection of her papers, played an important role in shifting that stance, not least through the beautiful vignettes she provides.
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