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Alone no more--thank you Anna Freud!

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Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi everybody,

Well, I finally found a therapist who, after decades of study and work, came to the same conclusions that I did!  I never would have imagined that that therapist would be Anna Freud!  Obviously, she could have written my book…

This is the very last section of the Wikipedia article about her (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Freud):

"Opinions on psychoanalysis: From a letter written by Anna Freud
Dear John ...,
You asked me what I consider essential personal qualities in a future psychoanalyst. The answer is comparatively simple. If you want to be a real psychoanalyst you have to have a great love of the truth, scientific truth as well as personal truth, and you have to place this appreciation of truth higher than any discomfort at meeting unpleasant facts, whether they belong to the world outside or to your own inner person.
Further, I think that a psychoanalyst should have... interests... beyond the limits of the medical field... in facts that belong to sociology, religion, literature, [and] history,... [otherwise] his outlook on... his patient will remain too narrow. This point contains... the necessary preparations beyond the requirements made on candidates of psychoanalysis in the institutes. You ought to be a great reader and become acquainted with the literature of many countries and cultures. In the great literary figures you will find people who know at least as much of human nature as the psychiatrists and psychologists try to do.
Does that answer your question?'

In perhaps not dissimilar vein, she wrote in 1954 that 'With due respect for the necessary strictest handling and interpretation of the transference, I feel still that we should leave room somewhere for the realization that analyst and patient are also two real people, of equal adult status, in a real personal relationship to each other."

After reading this, I'm sure she would have welcomed me to her "therapy underground!"

Richard

Hopalong:
And she'd have been both very lucky and grateful to have you, Doc G!

Glad you've found this affirming piece.
You've walked a lonely road.

love
Hops

Dr. Richard Grossman:
Thanks, Hops!   I wonder what it was like to be Anna when she was in psychoanalysis with her father, and if and when she ever admitted to him that she was lesbian.  The lack of a real relationship in such a therapy would be mindboggling and damaging.  I’m so glad she “came out” (in a different sense!) late in her career and recognized the value of the real relationship in therapy.

Richard

lighter:
You sound like your heart's bursting with validation and fellowship, Doc. 

You're so very right about relationship in T.  You've always been right.

Lighter

Twoapenny:
Oh, Dr G, have you always been the only one?  I didn't realise that.  I'm glad you have found a comrade, in that case!  I knew your views and approach weren't necessarily the norm, I just didn't realise they were seen so infrequently in other therapists.  Hopefully more will climb aboard, you can't be the only person who feels the way you do?  Maybe others aren't brave enough to speak their truth - they might feel more inclined to as they realise they aren't the only ones as well.  Either way, I'm glad you have someone else that sees things the way you do.  Hopefully more will follow :) xx

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