Regarding ethics and technique: a discussion of the limits of the analists implication in examples of Winnicott and Masud Khan

• Grant number: 20/08928-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2020
• End date: September 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Nelson Ernesto Coelho Junior
• Grantee: Amanda Watson Martins Pereira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research conducts an ethical investigation of technique, seeking ethical limits that could guide the analytical practice. Starting from the concept of reserved presence as an ethical posture of the analyst, as proposed by Luís Cláudio Figueiredo, we seek to understand what could be an excessive implication of the analyst, that is, an excessive presence of the therapist's personality in the clinical situation, leading to the hindrance of listening to the other in their otherness and, possibly, to iatrogenic effects on the patient. For this, a conceptual-historical review will be carried out, analysing works by two significant analysts: Donald W. Winnicott and Masud Khan. These authors were responsible for important original contributions to the analytical technique, being among those who introduced the work with countertransference, the investigation of the analyst's role in the production of therapeutic improvement and a shift of the analytical technique in the direction of implication. We will try to find, through the investigation of the works of authors who introduced and defended the participation of the analyst's personality in the clinic, indications of what may constitute an "excess of implication".