Welcome to PEP Web! Viewing the full text of this document requires a subscription to PEP Web. If you are coming in from a university from a registered IP address or secure referral page you should not need to log in. Contact your university librarian in the event of problems. If you have a personal subscription on your own account or through a Society or Institute please put your username and password in the box below. Any difficulties should be reported to your group administrator. Username: Password: Can't remember your username and/or password? If you have forgotten your username and/or password please click here and log in to the PaDS database. Once there you need to fill in your email address (this must be the email address that PEP has on record for you) and click "Send." Your username and password will be sent to this email address within a few minutes. If this does not work for you please contact your group organizer. Athens user? Login here. Not already a subscriber? Order a subscription today.

(1979). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 60:217-223

Dimensions of a Single Word-Association in the Analyst's Reverie

John G. Flannery

The object of this paper is to describe an aspect of the mind's activity under the condition of evenly suspended attention, the analyst's working posture. Not every analyst of course would agree that evenly suspended attention is essential to the listening attitude. Ramzy (1974), for instance prefers Freud's (1909, p. 23) earlier description of our work, where he states we 'suspend our judgement and give our impartial attention to everything that there is to observe' (italics mine). For want of a better word I have called this activity of mind 'the reverie', meaning a 'fit of musing or day-dreaming' (OED), which is not an exact equivalent but will do as a rough approximation. In the reverie the analyst muses or ponders upon the conscious derivatives of his own unconscious mind, which is in tune with the unconscious mind of his patient. As Freud (1912, p. 115–6) writes: 'he, [the analyst] must turn his own unconscious like a receptive organ towards the transmitting u

[This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.]