What Do Patients Want?: Psychoanalytic Perspectives from the Couch

What Do Patients Want? provides readers with an insight into patients' psychoanalytic experiences "from the couch". Outcome studies have usually privileged the practitioner or researcher's voice, while underutilizing the rich published accounts of patient's own stories. Thus very little is understood or valued as to what actually takes place between patient and analyst, from the patient's perspective. This book sets out to tell the stories of 18 ex-patients who, in interviews, reflected upon their experiences and described the factors which they believed were helpful, or not, in their analytic treatment. Free associating to an open question about how they understood and gave meaning to their personal journeys, these patients provided very vivid accounts of their analyses, demonstrated with clinical material. Their stories generally indicate a sophisticated understanding of the analytic process. Significant findings are discussed in each chapter, and then key conceptual issues are brought together at the end. The book is written in a journey format with each chapter related to a specific theme. The patients describe how the whole process began, and then bring up issues linked with working through the transference/ counter-transference relationship in its multi faceted aspects, and finally reflect upon the termination period and its aftermath. This is one of few published books which presents psychoanalysis from the patients' experiences.