Analytic intimacy and the restoration of nurturance

I have tried to distinguish between intimacy and nurturance in the adult psychoanalytic relationship. Intimate relatedness refers to a coparticipation in the relationship, with both parties presenting their experience and opening themselves to the other. A nurturant analytic relationship is characterized by a parent-child configuration in the analysis. The patient is often seen as not formed or not possessing a self and the analyst's task is to provide the sort of nurture that will help the patient develop a self. This can overlook whatever self the patient has developed and work counter to the formation of a solidified identity and a sense of autonomy. Crucial to the central thesis is the view that past deficiencies cannot be retrieved. The effort to make up for early deficiencies by providing a new parental experience is sometimes a defense against the hopelessness that patients can come to grips with their lives as they are. An intimate analytic inquiry can help patients see and accept who they are and where they have come from. Judicious use of the analyst's self can aid patients in relating intimately, recognizing in the process that they have a self that they, with the analyst's help, can integrate and put to more fruitful use.