Some therapeutic factors in psychoanalysis.

Several aspects of the patient-analyst interaction play an important part in the success or failure of analysis. Examining the unconscious and conscious attitude of the analyst in the therapeutic process clarifies the source of the analyst's difficulties in functioning successfully in his professional role. In the attitude which the analyst adopts toward his patients, it is essential, for example, to differentiate antitherapeutic factors such as the tendency of the analyst to collude with his patients from such therapeutic factors as sensitivity, receptiveness, and openness to the patients non verbal and verbal communications. These help the analyst to understand the patients on the level of object relation and ego function which is most meaningful to him. The analyst's peace of mind and his capacity to contain and bring together the patients fragmented mental state is of particular importance in the treatment of borderline and psychotic patients. Certain features in the patient's personality, such as the capacity for early object relations, sensitivity, and capacity for observation and perception, seem to contribute to a more open therapeutic interaction between patient and analyst. Nevertheless, difficulties in the interaction between patient and analyst remain and are a serious threat to the successful function of the psychoanalytic process.