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1 The Analytic Attitude: An Introduction The analytic attitude ranks as one of Freud's greatest creations. If the analyst is to provide the analysand with the best chance for a search­ ing and beneficial analysis, then he or she must maintain this attitude with a high degree of consistency. Both the findings of psychoanalysis as a method of investigation and its results as a method of treatment depend on this consistency. But what is the analytic attitude? Some­ thing so important should be formulated in a relatively concise, com­ plex, and generally acceptable way, yet we have no such formulation. None w?s offered by Freud, though a version of his ideas on the ana­ lytic attitude can be derived from his papers on technique (see chapter 2), especially when these papers are considered in the context of all his works. Over the years, many other analysts have published significant con­ tributions to this topic. Typically they have done so in connection with their discussions of analytic technique. From a very long list of notable contributions of this sort, I wish to mention those made by Sandor Ferenczi, Karl Abraham, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, Wilhelm Reich, Otto Fenichel, Edward Glover, John Strachey, Ella Freeman Sharpe, Theodor Reik, Ernst Kris, Rudolph Loewenstein, Annie Reich, Edith Jacobson, Kurt Eissler, Ralph Greenson, Leo Stone, Jacob Arlow, Charles Brenner, Merton Gill, and Heinz Kohut. But it must be noted that this rich literature presents difficulties. For one thing, the chief emphases in these contributions are not always the same, there being variation, for example, with respect to the desirability of the analyst's maintaining emotional detachment, making early, deep interpreta­ tions, and focusing intensively on transference. Emphases also vary on manifesting a caretaking and self-expressive humanness, engaging in forceful and dramatic confrontations, and centering attention on the uses and significance of empathy. For another thing, in many in­

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