Writing About Patients: V. Analysts Reading About Themselves as Patients

Abstract

The narratives of twenty analysts who were written about when they were patients are presented. Their narratives provide suggestions about practices to avoid when writing clinical material, but no generalized prescriptions emerge. Individualization and sensitivity to the situation for each patient-analyst pair remain the best guide. The experiences these analysts recount run the gamut of emotions, from negative through neutral to positive. The neutral responses came mainly from twelve analysts who in the course of an interview about their own writing told of having been written about as patients. The other eight, volunteers who initiated contact for the sole purpose of reporting their experience of having been written about, appear on average to be motivated by stronger affective reactions. The era in which the analyst wrote also seems to have influenced the reactions; in earlier times, not asking permission was accepted professional practice. Today, however, it is increasingly common to ask permission when extended clinical examples are published. One problem specific to analyst-patients was concern about the loss of their role as patient when their analyst engaged them collaboratively in the writing.