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Description of  The Analytical Process: Journeys and Pathways

The term psychoanalytical process, though occurring but rarely in Freuds works, has become firmly established nowadays despite being hard to define, explain, or pin down in conceptual or in meta-psychological terms. Although "psychoanalytic process" is often employed as equivalent to psychoanalytic work, currents of thought that draw on the idea display a certain ambivalence, for it can relate both to a theory of treatment (the practice of analysis) and to a theory of mind (a theory of psychic functioning). Hence, after examining the conceptual developments in the work of Freud and certain subsequent thinkers, the author then bases his remarks on the observation that study of the heterogeneity of mental functioning has given rise to an attendant conceptual heterogeneity which is illustrative of the infinite complexity of the psychic issues involved in any analysis. Before developing his own original perspectives about the consequences of the heterogeneity of psychic functioning, the author examines how various practitioners have approached this subject since Freud. He shows how each has shed useful new light on this issue, leading to a diversity of points of view, thereby justifying the idea of the "process" within psychoanalytic treatment.