The patient ideal

This paper is concerned with psychic processes within the mind of the analyst; its thesis is that the analyst's internal picture of what his troubled patient can become, or what he will be like when he is well, will affect what the analyst does with the patient and thus the outcome of the treatment. These fantasies on the part of the analyst are probably inevitable in spite of attempts at "even hovering attention." The patient also fantasizes a treatment outcome. The interplay of these conscious or unconscious fantasies and expectations, which may or may not be spoken aloud, will have an important effect on the course of the analysis.