Self-analysis and the development of an interpretation

In spite of the fact that Freud's self-analysis was at the centre of so many of his discoveries, self-analysis remains a complex, controversial and elusive exercise. While self-analysis is often seen as emerging at the end of an analysis and then used as a criteria in assessing the suitability for termination, I try to attend to the patient's resistance to self-analysis throughout an analysis. I take the view that the development of the patient's capacity for self-analysis within the analytic session contributes to the patient's growth and their creative and independent thinking during the analysis, which prepares him or her for a fuller life after the formal analysis ends. The model I will present is based on an over lapping of the patient's and the analyst's self-analysis, with recognition and use of the analyst's counter-transference. My focus is on the analyst's self-analysis that is in response to a particular crisis of not knowing, which results in feeling intellectually and emotionally stuck. This paper is not a case study, but a brief look at the process I went through to arrive at a particular interpretation with a particular patient during a particular session. I will concentrate on resistances in which both patient and analyst initially rely upon what is consciously known.