Kantrowitz begins The Patient's Impact on the Analyst by documenting how the process of analysis fosters an interactional process out of which patient and analyst alike experience therapeutic effects. Then, drawing on the clinical examples provided by her survey respondents, she offers a detailed exploration of the ways in which clinically triggered self-reflection represents a continuation of the analyst's own personal understanding and growth. Finally, she incorporates these research findings into theoretical reflections on how analysts obtain and integrate self-knowledge in the course of their ongoing clinical work. This book is a pioneering effort to understand the therapeutic process from the perspective of its impact on the analyst. It provides an enlarged framework of comprehension for recent discussions of self analysis, countertransference, interaction, and mutuality in the analytic process. Combining a wealth of experiential insight with thoughtful commentary and synthesis, it will sharpen analysts' awareness of how they work and how they are affected by their work.

Part I: Prologue. The Project. Part II: Ways of Knowing. Forms of Self-Exploration: Different Analysts, Different Modes of Exploration. Triggers for Self-Knowledge: How Analysts Recognize an Aspect of Themselves Requiring Further Self-Reflection. Pathways to Self-Knowledge: Private Reflections, Shared Communications, and Work with Patients. Part III: Changes in the Analyst. Similarity of Affect, Conflict, Defense, or Situation. Admiration for Qualities or Chacteristics of Patients. Patients' Interpretations of the Analyst. Countertransference Response as Stimuli for Self-Reflection. The Therapeutic Process for the Analyst. Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis: Exploration of Its Impact on the Analyst. The Darker Side: The Potential Negative Impact of Patients on Their Analysts. Part IV: Epilogue. Concluding Thoughts.