title: People are not cabbages: reflections on patient and analyst change.
abstract: The author describes how her own internal change was a vital part of transformation between herself and two patients. She draws on Loewald's work as she discusses how change in her own internal relationship with her father was part of a lifelong emotional reorganization of Oedipal relations. She describes a process of mutual change whereby her and her patients' unconscious growth each stimulated the other. She suggests that the analyst's own emotional growth is a vital, not an incidental, part of psychoanalysis, as it brings new life to the work for patients as well as analysts themselves.
authors.affiliation: Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, USA. Anniesweetnam@gmail.com
authors.forename: Annie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sweetnam
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D014167:Transference, Psychology; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology