Bad theater in psychotherapy: the case for therapists' liberation

Freud's admonition to psychoanalysts to be objective in their work, like a mirror or surgeon, was intended to allow them to work in "a pure field." This advice has been excessively adhered to, with the result that many therapists have become unduly unresponsive. A host of petty practices has developed, whereby therapists become preoccupied with such matters as payment of fees, vacations, protecting patients from meeting each other, missed hours, and so on. This has led to stilted and unproductive therapy. Student therapists must be supervised by teachers unencumbered by such attitudes and practices, so that they can do the hard, ordinary work which constitutes psychotherapy. Only in this way will new generations of therapists be liberated from these disabling and artificial constrictions.