Adelphi Society For Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, the Toronto Society for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and the

We wish to address two taboos characteristic of both past and present psychoanalytic practice: (1) the taboo against analysts giving serious consideration to the ways in which psychoanalysis may at times be destructive; and (2) the taboo against having simultaneously in individual analysis with the same analyst people in ongoing relationships with each other. We suggest ways in which violating the latter taboo by working individually with people in relationship may serve to prevent some of the potentially destructive consequences of the traditional practice of referring spouses, relatives and close friends of current patients. I. Theoretical Rationale In Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and the Self, Guntrip (1973) wrote: "The critics of psychoanalytic therapy usually ignore the implication of their views, which is simply that persons qua persons, who can and do so obviously influence each other for ill, cannot influence each other for good; a conclusion that would nullify all that is most important in parenthood, friendship, and marriage, let alone psychoanalysis " (p. 176). But if the critics of psychoanalysis ignore the fact that persons qua persons can influence each other for good, then psychoanalysts, assuming that their efforts are of precisely this sort, are often guilty of ignoring the fact that, however fine their intentions, analysts sometimes influence their patients Page 1 of 24Tabo