SEVEN PAPERS ON EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS ... - Wagner College

Certainly, some ways of comporting onself as a therapist are desirable, but these are,
mostly about manners. Any behavior that would put oneself in the position of offering the first
kind of solicitude mentioned should be avoided. It remains, then, to say how to get out of the
way, to step aside and make way in the therapeutic relationship, since this is what will allow for
the expansion of the analysand's freedom. The effect of stepping out the way is therapeutic
revalidation.
Most of us would agree that, in one sense, the analysand is already free, but does not
know it. It is equally true, however, that the analysand does not feel free, and that, after all, is
what matters.
To understand what therapeutic revalidation is, let us revisit the mother-infant
relationship. What happens when a mother confers existence on her infant? We have described
its structure as mutual validation, which happens for the first time for the infant at the mother's
hands. Unlike the relationships between human beings, where validation is possible at any time,
up to a certain point the infant is not capable of validating the existence of another human
being. He comes to be able to do this, thanks to the (m)other's efforts. Other than offering
validation (which, for many weeks, is not returned), what does she do, other than persisting in
offering the infant his existence? She asks for the validation of her own existence, since that is
what will complete the circle of mutuality that is required. In fact, I think we can we say that this
is all the mothering figure does. It is more basic than offering validation. The work of the
existential analyst is similar.
Consonant with the kind of solicitude that makes way for the other therapeutic
revalidation is based on inviting the analysand's existential validation. In other words, it begins
with solicitation of the analysand's capacity for existential validation while remaining ready to
offer validation of the analysand's existence (9). An existential analyst, then, is very much like the
mother of infancy, who is so very different from the mother of childhood, with whom, I think,
psychotherapists have so often been inappropriately compared. Mothers of children must surely
stand in for their children. They regularly intervene in their children's lives. This necessarily deprives
children of their freedom, but it is necessary for their socialization and acculturation. It is also the
reason why after an infant’s initial conferral of existence and the opening of clearing has taken
place, existence gradually darkens little by little through childhood. By the end of adolescence,
we are all much more in the dark than we had been during the early childhood years.
How does one stand aside and invite the analysand's existential validation? If there is a
technical recommendation is existential analysis, this is it. It is not about what to avoid, and it is
not only about not standing in for the analysand, although that is important. Beyond the
avoidance of such intervention, there is something active going on, and that is why I think it can
be referred to as a therapeutic stance and why it counts as a therapeutic recommendation. To
begin with, it is difficult to stand aside, since our inclination is to become part of other people’s
lives, which we analysts do in our lives as ordinary citizens, as partners in our own personal
relationships, and as teachers. Perhaps the best model for this stance that stands aside is the Zen
master, who gives the apprentice nothing. I think of the Zen master, who offers his closed hand
or fist. Open, and the gift is gone. Similarly, standing aside and making way, the existential
analyst offers the analysand precisely – nothing. But what a gift it is, if it can be sustained! This
nothing or nothingness is, of course, the plenum of possibility the analysand is seeking. Only freed
up from everything that she is can an analysand's existence breathe clearly once again (10).
The existential analyst must make an effort to be nothing to the analysand. This is not say
that the analyst makes him self nobody to the analysand, which Freud thought was requisite for
psychoanalysis (11). There is no contradiction that the existential analyst is both fully real
(someone) and nothing to the analysand. Nor is this nothingness communicated as something
inert. In a way, it is the most energized activity imaginable, in that it allows for anything for the
analysand. Moreover, the effort to remain nothing for the analysand requires a vigilance that
always puts the analysand's freedom first, but must always be commensurate with the analyst's
own freedom, which is equivalent to his own clearing. It requires what I would term the discipline