Taking Risks from the Unconscious: A Psychoanalysis from Both Sides of the Couch

Hope began her treatment with Dr. Marcus by telling him that her training analysis had been very helpful, but had not enabled her to get to the bottom of her difficulties. She made it clear that if this new analytic journey were to be successful, their true selves would have to meet. This is the story, told from both points of view, of how Hope helped her analyst develop the courage to risk responding directly from his unconscious, allowing their true selves to meet, while still maintaining the analytic frame. Intervening in this way the analyst sang to his patient, told her a dream he had about his daughter, and engaged in a spontaneous psychodrama in which they both expressed feelings of love, lust, frustration, anger and sadness. It was this emotional meeting of their true selves which seemed most responsible for the excellent outcome.

About the Author :
Donald M. Marcus, M.D. is a training and supervising analyst at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and also at the Psychoanalytic Center of California where he was a founding member. He had his premedical studies at NYU and MIT and received his M.D. from Indiana University School of Medicine. Following residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry, he had his psychoanalytic training at what was then the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. After becoming a graduate analyst he had a Kleinian analysis and supervision with Wilfred Bion, who had a powerful influence on his thinking. He is now in private practice in Los Angeles.

Review :
In this unique and pioneering work, Don Marcus substantiates his conviction that careful and skillful self-disclosure enhances the analytic work. The details of two deeply insightful, sensitive and empathic analysts further the cause of intersubjectivty as a modern tool of psychoanalytic therapy. Among the most important steps that psychotherapists need to take is to find meaningful ways to obtain feedback from patients about how they experienced the therapeutic work. For psychoanalysts this is an especially difficult and tricky problem since we cannot take conscious responses at face value and because we must always consider the transference. In this trailblazing book, Donald Marcus and his patient, "Hope," make a first brave effort to collaborate so as to explore a rather unconventional and innovative analysis from both sides of the couch. Exploring self-disclosure, interpreting from the unconscious, erotic countertransference, dual-relationship, and post-analytic contact, this moving narrative will present a clinical and ethical challenge to all clinicians. By challenging many of our assumptions about analytic technique, this innovative, daring book makes a valuable contribution to the debate on the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis. The joint collaboration of patient and analyst provides rare insights into the healing process in a successful analysis and raises many intriguing questions about the way that therapy works. This is a book that should be read by all those engaged in the field of analytic therapy. This is a remarkable account of an analysis that in its frankness probably violates orthodoxy and ethical rules. The authors are to be commended for their openness in describing how they worked. Such truthful reports of what actually takes place in an analysis will allow us to make comparisons of a variety of techniques....This book is recommended to all who are interested in psychoanalysis and to ethics committees who want to keep informed as to where psychoanalytic practice may be heading. This is an incredible work. It is the well-organized, superbly presented story not only of a highly successful and intimate analysis, but also of an analysis conducted in a most unusual way while remaining solidly within legitimate boundaries and frame. In this analysis, Dr. Marcus and his patient, "Hope," took great risks to achieve intimacy with one another and succeeded, so much so that their relationship amounted to a virtual analytic love affair that was conducted within legitimate bounds. What is new about Dr. Marcus's technique in this analysis is that his approach and interventions issued directly from the unconscious, in the style of Bion. This book is beautifully organized into the author's clinical notes, to which are added the patient's and the analyst's retrospective views about each session. This is a book about a wondrous, technical approach that asks for legitimacy and that causes us to pause and to consider it as a technique on the cutting edge of psychoanalysis. The authors are to be congratulated.