Paper Session B
7. On Hope: The Patient’s and the Analyst’s
Presenter: |
David W. Krueger, MD, FAPA, FACP |
Discussant: |
Andrew P. Morrison, MD |
Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program
Overview
Hope, the expectation of fulfillment of need or desire, fuels and guides ambition, and exists in evolving form and mission throughout development. The role of hope in normal development, its use as defensive function, the selfobject functions of hope, the transformation of hope in analysis, and hope in psychoanalyst are described and illustrated in clinical vignettes.
The internal dialectic of fantasies and achieved hope in the patient’s life story, as well as real and tranferential hope, intersect with the analyst’s own relationship to hope. The analyst’s hopefulness of the patient’s conflict resolution of developmental evolution, and of active, positive engagement with life is communicated in the clinical exchange, is build into interpretations that further the analytic process. The role of hope in both patient and analyst is reflected in the evolution of psychoanalysis to emphasize the developmental, the healthy and adaptive along with the defensive and pathological, and the intersubjective in recognizing that both patient and analyst co-author the analytic transformation of hope.