Tsn Umqun BnNJeuw WorsrsN ASE>enrurNcED AND READ

SUE A . SHAPIRO, Ph .D .

Reprinted from

CONTEMPORARYPSYCHOANALYSIS

Volume 36, Number 2, April 2000

301

SUE A . SHAPIRO, Ph .D .

Trtr UNrqun BnNJeurN'WorsrErN ASE>ennrnNCED AND READ*

ENJAMIN \TOLSTEIN was one of the most prolific writers of hisgeneration of psychoanalysts, and certainly the most prolific inter-

personal psychoanalyst. He wrote seven books and about 100 articlesand chapters in books. He was a regular speaker at New York University,r0filliam Alanson White Institute, Adelphi, Institute for Contemporary Psy-choanalysis, and Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, but he rarelyspoke at other psychoanalytic institutes. There were several early foraysinto mixed psychoanalytic audiences, but over the years they were fewerand fewer,r while some of his colleagues (Levenson in his generation,and Blechner, Ehrenberg, Greenberg, and Mitchell, to name but a few, inthe next) continued to broaden their audience. Wolstein trained severalgenerations of analysts as their analyst, supervisor, or teacher. The namesof his students who claim him as a major influence reads like a \7ho's'Who of interpersonal and relational psychology: Lewis Aron, RoanneBarnett, Tony Bass, Mark Blechner, Barbara Dusansky, Darlene Ehren-berg, Dan Epstein, John Fiscalini, Roberta Held-Weiss, Irwin Hirsch, Ir-ena Klenbort, Phyllis Meshover, Ian Miller, Richard Rubens, Sue Shapiro,Clark Sugg, 'Warren'lfilner, to name several. But outside this immediatecircle of New York-based, interpersonally trained analysts, \Tolstein'sname and work are relatively unknown. Even within his own institutionalhome base, the lVilliam Alanson White Institute, his work is often notincluded in edited works (Epstein & Feiner, 1979) or cired in relevantarticles and books. I hope that this article serves as an introduction to

'This essay is dedicated to the memory of Phyllis Meshover, a dear friend of mine and afellow srudent of Benjamin Volstein. She died on June 7, 1999.

I also want to thank Mark Blechner and Nora Lapin for their detailed reading andhelpful criticisms of the manuscript.

t At times he was overly provocative. For example, in a live demonstration in the 1970s ofa session meant as partof a conference on countertransference, he ended the dialogue byturning to the audience and suggesting that because countertransference is by definitionunconscious, he couldn't corrunent on it, and they should now discuss what they saw.

0010-7530/00 $2.00 + .05Copyright O 2000 \9. A. W. Institute20 W. 74th Street, New York, NY 10023All rights of reproduction in any fom reseryed.Contempomry Psychoanalysis, Vol. J6, No. 2 (2000)

302 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D ,

the main themes in his work, an articulation of the main influences onhis thinking, and provides some thoughts on his relative obscurity.

To orient the reader who is totally unfamiliar with Wolstein's work,his main concerns were: (1) the articulation of a scientific structure ofpsychoanalytic inquiry; (2) the democratization of psychoanalytic pro-cess, both in the equal focus on transference and countertransference,resistance and counterresistance, anxiety and counteranxiety, and the selfof both patient and analyst; (3) the immediacy of psychic experience incontrast with the reporting of past behaviors or the stating of predeter-mined interpretations; (4) the distinction berween 1 processes and mepatterns, between the psychic center of the self as subject or active agentand the self as object or persona.

Background and Context

Early History: Hassidic Judaism, Kabdah, and the Midwest

Beniamin Volstein, born in 1922 in Cape May, New Jersey, grew upin a Hassidic family that settled in Flint, Michigan. He grew up with adeep patriotism, a real sense of being American, but was also steeped inOrthodox Hassidic Judaism. He attended public school by day, and hisafter-school religious education mixed the rigorous scholasticism of tradi-tional Jewish studies with the spiritual fullness of Hassidism. When\Tolstein came east to attend Yeshiva University, he was supposed tofulfill his family expectations and become a rabb| He broke sharply fromthis legacy when, after graduation, he went to Columbia Universiry tostudy philosophy. Despite this dramatic break, which perhaps echoes hisparents' departure from their shtetl, strains of his religious backgroundcan be seen both in his early interest in Spinoza (\flolstein, t953c) andlater interesr in the Kabalah. (Citations of \(olstein's works in this articlerefer to "Publications of Beniamin'Wolstein," pp. 351-367; those of otherauthors are in "References," pp. 339-34t ) In fact, several of his metapsy-chological assumptions bear the direct imprint of the Kabalah. For exam-ple, in the interview published here, \Wolstein states his view that hatecomes from fear and that this is best counteracted by love. He had beenarticulating this view for many years, and it originates in the Kabalah. Inaddition, his conception of the self at times sounds like the eternal flamein the synagogue, a quiet presence that will not be extinguished.

Despite his early religious background and his later interest in theKabalah, \(/olstein was at pains to differentiate his thinking from that of

woLSTErN's UNTQUENESS

mystics, Zen Buddhists, and existentialists. In part, he was determined todistinguish his interest in immediate or direct experience from those witha mystical bent, or those, like the existentialists, who were more nihilistic(wolstein tg6'1., L952a, b, c, d, 1,964b,1966,1,g69a).

During the early 1970s, Wolstein met Swami Bua, a yogi from India,the "real thing" as Volstein would say, and he began a very serious studyof yoga. I think this physical pracrice, along with his renewed inreresr inthe Kabalah, softened his antagonism to mysticism. But there remaineda continuous tension in \Tolstein's thinking and being between mysti-cism and rationalism, affect and cognition, immediacy and reflection. Or,as he often said, he had a Hassidic soul, a yogic body, and a psychoana-lytic mind. (Arguably these diverse and deeply felt inlluences were neverfully integrated.)

Philosophical Training: James and Dewey

\Tolstein got his degree in philosophy with a dissertation, Experienceand Valuation (1949c), based on William James and John Dewey. Thisfoundation in philosophy shines through all \Tolstein's subsequent writ-ing, informing both the territory he set out to explore and the style inwhich he approached this journey. Themes of freedom, responsibility,humanism, and democratic ideals come up repeatedly in his metapsy-chology, showing the influence of Dewey, as well as his life-long admira-tion for Abraham Lincoln. Volstein, after leaving Orthodox Judaism,sought a secular system of values, and while he argued for a plurality ofmetapsychologies, in part stemming from his democratic ideals, hetended to universalize his own commitment to humani.sm, democracy.and science.

As becomes clearer in the course of this essay, the ongoing influenceof Villiam James should not be underesrimated. Throughout Wolsrein'sprofessional career he strove to articulate the structure of psychoanalyticinquiry, a dyadic process, in a way that paralleledJames's stream of con-sciousness in the individual. \?olstein was committed to articulating therole of original, nonconsensual sponse, not response, within the dyad.His focus on immediate experience, with the Self, and his determinationto create a purely psychological psychoanalysis bear the deep imprint ofJames's thinking. \folstein, however, stripped James's psychology of isgrounding in bodity experience.

303

304 S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D .

Sociocultural-Historical and Psychoanalytic Context

wolstein belonged to the third generation of psychoanalysts and thesecond generation of interpersonal analysts. He began his professionalcareer during the 1950s, treating the men in gray flannel suits and thewomen about whom Betfy Friedan later wrote Tbe Feminine Mystique.His friendships with writers introduced him to the jazz wodd and a morebohemian group of people, some of whom, including Betty Friedan,James Jones, and Peter Matthiesen, went on to be of great significancein the cultural changes that were to follow.

'Wolstein began his psychoanalytic training and practice at a time whennonmedical analyss were fighting an uphill battle for legitimacy. Eventhe Villiam Alanson \fhite Institute, the most liberal psychoanalytic train-ing institute at the time, succumbed at various times to pressure to ex-clude or at least limit the number of nonmedical professionals that re-ceived psychoanalltic training. Vriting in response to the question of layanalysis, u(rolstein (1,953b) states that

Current techniques of inquiry have not as yet bridged the so-called gap[between mind and bodyl, and so this principle of the unified organismremains indeterminate from an experimental point of view. And extra-scientific commitments of one sort or another have infused the discussionwith more heat than light. To date, the description of connectives ioining"psychic" and "physiological" phenomena has very weak empirical bases;they are pre-eminently metaphysical. . . . The treatment of experienced dif-ficulties which have no demonstrable organic counterpart in any of theirphases does not involve any special concern with biological needs; thelatter are the province of physiological psychology and human biology.fp. 5o7l

This conviction that a knowledge of physiology is basically irrelevantto the analytic enterprise, written in 1,953, does not change over theyears. In a review of Eccles and Popper's Tbe Self and lts Brain, \folstein(1981b) wrote, "note, how, even in their title, they manage to ascribe aposition of primacy to the self, and to emphasize also, the primacy of itsinherent capacity to possess a brain." He sees in this book further evi-dence of the failure of "the promise either of biology or of sociology, orof both together to pave that road [tol . . . a psychology of self-knowl-edge guaranteed by the sciences external to its experience [is] but apleasant dream of yesteryear's enlightenment" (p. 136). Instead,'u7olstein

woLSTETN 'S UNTQUENESS

argues, we must return to a psychology of the self as the immediateexperience of first personal psychic activity, a theme already developedin the philosophical psychology of Villiam James (1890) but unaccount-ably absent from the clinical and metapsychological theories of psycho-analysis (p. 137).

I think the turf battles between psychiatrists and nonmedical psycho-analysts influenced \Tolstein's reluctance to give any credibility to thebiological and physiological findings that were to emerge in subsequentdecades. He wanted to create a purely psychological theory. It was asthough biology remained the biology of Freud's metapsychology-^ my-tho-poetic construction, rather than a well-researched empirical basis forcertain behaviors and moods. To give biological research significancewas to give legitimary to those who wanted to make a medical degree arequirement for psychoanalysts. Even in later years, bitterness at Sulli-van's preference for medically trained analysts colors Wolstein's thinkingabout interpersonal psychiatry O987b, p. 650). This antibiological biasled him to accept only half of James's psychological insights, forcing himto ignore James's prescient understanding of the biological basis of emo-tions and emotional cognition. I think this rejection represents his own"extrascientific commitment" and eliminated an opportunig for strength-ening the foundations of his theory of unique individuality (Shapiro,1981).

In reviewing \Tolstein's writing, which repeatedly refers to successivemodels of psychoanalysis, I am struck with the tendency of each succes-sive generation of psychoanalysts to react to the excesses of the previousgeneration. First, the early id psychology, with its emphasis on the un-speakable world of drives, was the perfect treatment for the rigidly so-cialized, highly mannered world of the late nineteenth century, withFreud's verbal treatment substituting for the physical treatments of hyste-ria (Maines, 1999). The next generation, what Volstein refers to as ego-interpersonalists, swings back to emphasize the need to adapt andachieve security. There is an emphasis on the social self, with far lessinterest in biology and drives. This model emerged in response both tothe insecurity of a world torn by economic depression, war, and exile,and the need to adapt to rapidly changing social circumstances. But thistheoretical emphasis is also a generational reaction against the emphasesof the first generation of analysts.

Volstein came into professional maturity in the 1960s and 1970s andwas very conscious of changing times-the need for a psychoanalysis

305

3M SUE A. SHAPIRO, Ph.D.

that wouldn't "shrink" people, but would make expansion possible. Hespecifically referred to the rapidly changing environment of technology,space travel, inner travel, nuclear energy, dissolving family structure, andthe ways in which these changes made it impossible for analyst or patientto know which culture to adapt to. Rather, people needed to be deeplyconnected to their psychic center and their own psychic resources sothat they could weather the changes they would have to endure. Addi-tionally, the political turmoil of Vietnam, and later Vatergate, madeadapting to the culture at large an exercise in hypocrisy and seriouslychallenged belief in authorities (197Oa, 1971c, 1974a, b, 1975b, c).Wolstein was ahead of his time in recognizing that the central task oflate twentieth-century humans was to be able to respond flexibly to theshifting roles and expectations, diverse life situations, and peoples thatwe are exposed to. These social-cultural forces, combined with his per-sonal biography and a need to differentiate himself from the previous,parental generation of analysts, informed his contribution to the thirdgeneration or model of psychoanalysis with its emphasis on the self, andin his case, the particular emphasis on the immediary of shared experi-ence. Vhile other theorists of the seventies, eighties, and nineties alsofocus on the self (Kohut, 1,972, 1977, 7984), or the subject (e.9., the inter-subjectivity of Stolorow, 1995; Stolorow & Brandschaft, 1994; Benjamin,7990, 1992), Wolstein's "self is different, as is discussed in detail later.For now, suffice it to say that Volstein's Kabalistic background and thedeep influence of James's ideas lend his conception of the self a uniquetwist.

Perhaps the personal significance of refusing to adjust and adapt to hisenvironment of origin, in his case Hassidism, played a role in the strengthof Wolstein's rejection of the efforts of ego-adaptational and interper-sonal schools to assist their patients in adjusting and adapting. This per-sonal joumey and the significance of friendships formed in adulthoodalso made Volstein critical of metapsychologies that ignored the signifi-cance of events that took place after childhood. Wolstein's work alsoreflects a movement away from the ovedy adapted, shrunken view ofpsychoanalysis prevalent in the fifties, which represented a retreat fromits more radical origins. Like many theorists in the sixties and seventies(e.g., Schafer and Lacan, each in his own very different way), \Tolsteinsought to revitalize psychoanalysis.

'lfolstein wanted to inject freshness and spontaneity into psychoanaly-sis. He felt that the sophisticated patients he was beginning to see in the

woLSTETN'S UNTQUENESS

fifties were all too comfortable with traditional psychoanalytic inteqpreta-tions and, like Portnoy, hid behind them. He didn't want to "shrink"people, and felt the label was all too often justified. Instead he proposedworking with increased levels of anxiery and focusing on the present-the immediate experience, rather than mediated, reflective, cognitive re-porting. Even in 1957 he cautioned against avoiding arxiety because pa-tients must learn how they habitually avoid it. "Habit is more comfortablethan feeling for it stops the irrational from intruding into processes ofthought" (1957, p. 297).

Ahead of his time in many ways, and perhaps too quirky to start amovement, \Tolstein anticipated more contemporary criticisms of identitymovements in his critique of the id-biological model and, for instance,its views of women, as well as his critique of the culrural school's de-scription of women's difficulties (1969b).Instead, he claimed that from apurely psychological perspective, no statements could be made aboutgeneral differences befween men and women. Indeed, he was critical ofall universal statements and interpretations and believed they served thedefensive function of shoring up the analyst's authority, reducing bothanalyst's and patient's anxiety, and protecting them both from direct ex-perience and engagement in the psychoanalytic process.

It is worth noting that although Wolstein was critical of therapy thatstayed at the level of cultural analysis, he did acknowledge socioculturalinfluences, while never acknowledging the impact of biology. Primarily,'Wolstein responded to the despair and anxiery of people who felt all tooadapted but dead, or eccentric but uncomfortable with their quirkiness.Although he was no less iudgmental, biased, or prejudiced than the nextperson, he was aware of how powerfully these biases entered treatmentin the form of metapsychology. Consequently he sought a w^y to mini-mize the impact of these biases by leveling the analytic playing field-byreducing or eliminating hierarchy and opening up the analyst's feelingsand thoughts to critical scrutiny by the patient. In addition he democra-tized the theorizing or interpretive work done in the course of analysis,believing that both analyst and patient have their own metapsychologies.\Tolstein was exceptionally sensitive to the subtle manipulations ofwhich analysts are capable and which significantly undermine the statedgoals of analysis.

The pressure Wolstein felt to democratize the consulting room and theanalytic dyad was strengthened by the cultural forces of the sixties,which combined with Volstein's own questioning and departure from

108 S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D .

orthodoxy. But I believe he was forever in conflict with his own author!tarian tendencies and rigorous intellectual and moral standards. Whileother analysts relaxed their formality during the seventies and eighties,\(olstein continued to dress for work in suit and tie, took longer thanmany to use first names, and was slower than most to embrace newtechnologies. Even telephones, answering machines, and air conditionerswere suspecr-forget about computers.

'Wolstein's Contributions to Psychoanalytic Theory

In reviewing the major psychoanalytic concepts addressed byVolstein, I discuss them both chronologically and thematically. Thechronological view is useful in pointing up the development of his ideasand the intellectual context in which he was writing; but because heelaborated and somewhat redefined many of his initial concepts in lateryears, I also anticipate some of his future work within my initial exposi-tion of a major theme. Thus, my discussion of his first major works, hisbooks, all of which were published before 1972, and a series of essaysin the 1970s on unique individualiry, are lengthier than my discussion ofhis essays in subsequent decades, which are, in my opinion, variationsand refinements of his earlier work. In fact, his later essays often tracethe arc of his theorizing and could well serve in place of this essay, buthis references to his own work are often stated in ways that sound asthough he is referring to the work of many people, and this can be mis-leading or confusing (see Volstein, t994b, for example).

194Os and l95Os: Eady Psychoanalytic Writing

During the late forties and earLy fifties, while \ifolstein was gainingclinical experience at Kings County Hospital and going through psycho-analytic training, he continued to publish in philosophical journals. In-creasingly, though, he began to address key concepts in psychoanalysis.Fresh from critically analyzingJames's and Dewey's work, lVolstein wasready to take on Freud's thinking without the reverence usually ex-pressed by psychoanalysts. The title of \Tolstein's first psychoanalyticpublication in 1953, "On a Neglected Aspect of Freud's PsychoanalyticProcedures" (1953a), exemplifies his straightforward approach. Rightfrom the start, W'olstein presumed to evaluate the logical inconsistenciesin Freud's theories and used a tone that could easily appear disrespectful.

W O L S T E I N ' S U N I Q U E N E S S

In fact, it represented the highest form of respect from \Tolstein's per-spective, but it was not an acceptable tone for psychoanalysts in thefifties and sixties.

Even before the critical theoretical reappraisals of Freudian theory byUook (1959), Rapaport (1960), Rapaport and Gill (1,95D, as well as latercritiques by cill (1976), Gronbaum (1984), Holt (1981, 1985) and Klein(1976), Volstein articulated the importance of distinguishing between aclinical theory of psychoanalysis and its metapsychology. \(olstein's cri-tique of psychoanalytic theory as theory continued to be a significanttheme throughout his work. He was dedicated to improving what hereferred to as the scientific basis of psychoanalltic research. By "re-search" \Tolstein meant scholarship, critical reflection on his experiencein the consulting room. The term "research" could be misleading to somepeople, because lVolstein wasn't in the least bit interested in empiricaldata from outside the consulting room, nor in research on clinical effi-cacy. Rather, he insisted that there is a scientific structure to psychoana-lytic inquiry and process, and that the only legitimate data for psycho-analysis comes from the dyadic experience in the room between analystand patient.z He struggled, on one hand, with a desire to be scientificand, on the other, a commitment to the pluralism and uniqueness ofeach individual analyst, patient, and dyad. The solution he developedwas to seek "agreement on guiding therapeutic principles at higher levelsof abstraction" (1957, p. 281). Volstein's evolving theory of psychoana-lytic inquiry will be discussed further below, but it is significant that hewas concerned with this from the outset.r

In choosing to call his first major psychoanalytic work Transference,Wolstein was already distancing himself from the most orthodox wingof interpersonal psychoanalysis. He refers to Sullivan's term "parataxic'Whereas wolstein was obviously mindful of the paradigm shift in early twentieth-cenrury

scientfic thinking, he remained a true believer in "science." He sought to retain the powerof scientific argument by appealing to logical empiricism. Vhile he strives to separateobservation from metapsychological theory, recent work in philosophy of science andcognitive psychology argues that this is impossible, that all observations are theory laden.So while lvolstein is trying to find a way out of this dilemma, a way to find a psychoanaly-sis that stands apart from changes in theory or metapsychology, some would question thewhole endeavor (Hayward, 1992).

I tVolstein's law, that every patient is unique, every therapist unique, and every dyadunique, did not get articulated in that form until the last decade, but the seeds of this vieware present in 1957 , when he states: "If we take seriously our assumptions about personal-ity differences of analysts having affects on the developing treatment situation, no onecould, in any strict sense, be expected to duplicate the empirical work of anyone else"Q .28D .

309

310 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D .

distortion," but chooses to stay closer to classical language, which heproceeds to redefine. Also in these eady works he begins to group to-gether the ego-adaptational work of Reich (1933), A. Freud (7936), andHartmann (1930) with the interpersonal psychiatry of Sullivan (1940),Thompson (1950, 1952), Honey (1937), and English object relations the-orists (e.g., Fairbairn, 1952). Later he places Kohut and the Chicagoschool of self psychology in that same collective. All the theoreticians inthis group address the functions of behaviors, the need for securify ordefense; they focus on the function and pattems of interaction or engage-ment with the external world; and for the first time they make the analy-sis of resistance possible. Previously, in the id-biological model, resis-tance was supposed to be "overcome," and narcissistic neuroses, which\Tolstein argued could just as well be called "resistance" neuroses, couldnot be analyzed. \fith the advances in technique derived from the ego-interpersonal model, resistance could be analyzed and a greater propor-tion of previously untreatable character disorders could be analyzed. lnstressing the common ground of what at times have been viewed asopposing "camps"-namely the ego-adaptational and the interpersonalschools-Volstein laid the foundation for what he saw as his task, thetask of the next generation of psychoanalysts: to expand the range ofpsychoanalysis further by working with immediate experience, which intum made the analysis of arxiety possible and the emergence of thepsychic center of the self.

In Wolstein's early psychoanalytic writings, he followed the standardformat of psychoanalytic essays and books, first tracing the history anduse of concepts before articulating his own perspectives.ln TransferenceG954a) he specifically cites previous authors, but by the time he writesCountertransference (1,959a) he is less methodical in his citations. Hestates his rationale:

In the reactions to my study, Transference,l found that the extensive refer-ences to previous writing on various specific issues were not often con-sulted, and that, in some instances, even the import of direct quotationswas ignored. Conventional habits of thought do not seem to be influencedby the close analysis of ideas, in part, I suppose, because the will to believein the existence of a certain state of affairs can override conclusive evidence indicating that substantial changes have already come into being.Therefore, in the following pages, I have decided to give my full attentionto the basic psychoanalytic issues without burdening it with the excessfreight of detailed citation from previous work. [p. ixJ

woLSTETN'S UNTQUENESS

BothTransference and Countertransference show a theory in progress.In these works, Volstein illustrated his mastery of psychoanalytic theoryand prepares for a third stage in this theory, one that focuses on theshared experiential field. No longer should we view therapist and patientas self-enclosed units. Even though Wolstein argues that there is someinviolable sense of self, he rejects a notion of self separate from society.If we accept that view, he argues, why would anyone open up to anotherperson? Defenses would always be necessary. He rejects certain basicFreudian premises regarding drives and the basic conflict between manand civllizarion, and he begins to question basic premises of interper-sonal theory as well: for example, its exclusive focus on the interper-sonal, or what Wolstein later referred to as "me" patterns. For Sullivan,unique individuality was not an appropriate subject for analysis (seeKlenbort, 1978), while for Wolstein it became central.

In Sfolstein's first books, he already lays the foundation for a postrela-tional model and breaks with strict interpersonal theory. Transferenceand Countertransference both lay out two of the central themes that con-cerned \Tolstein throughout his life: the uniqueness of the individualpatient, analyst, and dyad, and the importance of immediate experienceand the unconscious present. In Countertransference he anticipates hisnext books on the structure of psychoanalytic therapy and the freedomto experience. Although Wolstein continued to use the word "counter-transference," he makes it clear that it is simply the analyst's transference.In other words, transference is a human activity, cofi[non to us all, justas anxiety and resistance are ordinary human experiences. As \Tolstein(1960) says, Freud "fashioned an instrument of therapy out of the sub-stantive fact that this process ltransference] is characteristic of life as hu-mans experience it" (p. 159). Both analyst and patient are equally capa-ble of transference. Neither has privileged access. Each may come toknow something about the other of which the other is unaware. Thisenlarged view of countertransference further democratizes the psychoan-alytic process. Throughout his analytic work, \Tolstein pushed for a moredemocratic psychoanalytic process, an experience shared by fwo sepa-rate, unique, and equal individuals.

Transference

ln Transference, and in a series of early papers (I954b, 1955, 1957,1959c, 1960, 1.964a), \(olstein proposes to expand the framework forunderstanding transference beyond its hypnotic roots. The failure of tra-

3 r r

3r2 S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D .

ditional psychoanalltic theory to adequately expand its theory of trans-ference and countertransference, when psychoanalysis moved beyondthe hypnotic goals of uncovering repressed trauma, is an ongoing themethat Wolstein addressed frequently throughout his professional life. Mostrecently, this was the subject of his presentation in a 1,996 panel thatwill be published later this year. Starting in 1954 with the monographTransference, Wolstein begins to articulate his concerns with the authori-tarian, hierarchical nature of classical psychoanalytic technique. He ar-gues that the actual setting, or frame, in classical analysis elicits child-hood feelings and a particular transference. In this regard, Wolsteinargues that regression is often iatrogenic and resistance can be viewedas a refusal to accept the hegemony of that analyst's metapsychology.This criticism had been leveled at psychoanalysis from outsiders, for ex-ample, family therapist Don Jackson (1968), but rarely from within psy-choanalysis.

Leaning on Dewey's logic of inquiry, as well as Hook's (1,95D criticismof the genetic method, .Wolstein emphasizes the present moment andargues that classical psychoanalysis stays too rooted in the past, withouta comparable focus on the present and the future. Wolstein (1960) inthis period focuses on uniffing the genetic and functional approach toinvestigate severe current difficulties in intra- and interpersonal pro-cesses. He is also critical of those who, like Horney (1937), emphasizethe here and now, and have an overly functional approach. Here too hefeels the analyst exercises too much authorify and "assumes that he pos-sesses more cognitive power than he actually has" (p. 170).

Wolstein goes on to argue that not only are past traumas repressed,but there is anxiety and repression of constructive capacities as well. Inlater years he will differentiate between repression of material that waspreviously conscious and can become "re-conscious" or re-membered,and material that was never conscious in the first place-material thatresembles Stern's (1.983, 1997) unformulated experiences.

Wolstein's emphasis on the therapeutic value of experience is a contin-uation of Ferenczi and Rank's (1924) critique of the overintellectual-ized technique of many classical analysts. In addition, Wolstein alwaysstressed a link between his way of working and the psychoanalysis ofBreuer, which predated classical metapsychology. The degree to which\(rolstein was heir to Ferenczi, especially his later work on the dialogueof unconsciouses and mutual analysis, only became fully clear in 1988,after the publication of Ferenczi's Clinical Diaries (Ferenczi, 7932,7933).

W O L S T E I N ' S U N I Q U E N E S S 313

Following their publication and the historical research generated in re-sponse (Aron & Harris, 1993; Haynal, 1989), Wolstein wrote a series ofpapers emphasizing the significance and compatibiliry of their work(1989a, 1991a, 1992b, 1,993a, 1997). Volstein's views on regression, how-ever, were more consistent with Thompson and her criticism of Ferenczifor encouraging regression (see Shapiro, 7993 for a fuller discussion ofthis).

Of all Volstein's writing, his first book, Transference, recelved themost critical attention, garnering mixed reviews. In these reviews we cansee how his writing was frequently misunderstood, and how he could bedismissed as being unanalytic. Tartakoff (1956) wrote a lengthy review inthe Journal of tbe Ameican Psychoanalytic Association, in which shetakes Wolstein to task for claiming to do psychoanalysis while rejectingboth Freud's instinct theory and the centrality of the oedipal complex,and also for his distrust of regression. Ultimately, Tartakoff accuses 'Wol-

stein (1954a) of not conducting psychoanalysis, because he states that"the specific subject matter of psychoanalytic therapy is defined here asdisturbances in interpersonal processes" (p. 188). Tartakoff (1956) con-cludes,

It seems likely that he does not use "interpretation" in our sense, i.e., touncover unconscious material. It is the reviewer's impression that he leansheavily upon the "clarification" of preconscious material and "manipula-tion" (Bibring). Furthermore, it seems probable from his use of the transfer-ence that "corrective experience" (Alexander and French) which is broughtabout largely by identification with the therapist, is at work in creating thetherapeutic results he describes. All of the above factors may well lead toreadjustment. They are to some extent at work in psychoanalytic techniquebut do not constitute what we understand, historically speaking, as psy-choanalysis proper which is the result, in its final outcome, of the interpre-tation of unconscious ego and id material, largely accomplished throughthe analysis of the transference neurosis.lp. 3291

Both Tartakoff and Paula Heimann (1956) in her review, as well asJerome Singer (1955) in his otherwise positive review, remark on'Wolstein's polemical posture, his emphasis on early Freud, and his failureto clarify his ideas with clinical examples. Heimann also comments onhis nontraditional exposition of ideas, which does a disservice both toFreud and to his own work, as well as "making the reviewer's task adifficult one" (p. 491). On the other hand, Heimann concludes that the

3r4 SUE A. SHAPIRO. Ph,D.

Frequent use of phrases like "cooperative enquiry," "shared experience"between patient and analyst, "participant observation," and "constructivecollaboration" suggest to the reviewer that the author takes very great careto impress his patient continuously with his friendly and helpful intentions.In otherwords, he seems to be saying agarnand again: "Look, you neednot be afraid of me." . . . in Britain such an attitude is designated by theterm "reassurance" which many of us consider as bypassing the analysis.. . . [Despite these criticisms] There are many empirical observations ofgreat value in this book, and the lists of ransference and counter-transfer-ence signs highlight the author's clinical acumen. His endeavor to do ius-tice to the patient's individuality, his rejection of dogmatism, his criticismof any attempt by the analyst to assume a glorified role, etc., commandrespect. [But she is baffled thatJ a person with the capacity for perceptionand conceptual thought which this book conveys should entertain suchprofound errors about Freud's basic principles. [pp. 492-493)

It would be a big surprise to lVolstein's supervisees and patients to hearhim described as being overly reassuring.

Singer (1956) came closest to appreciating l7olstein's work in his re-view, in which he notes, "The philosophic emphasis is somewhat un-usual for a book on analytic technique." But Wolstein seeks to "orientthe reader toward the essential philosophical assumptions which under-lie the theoretical constmcts of Freud. . . and contrasts this with morerecent (sic) implications of scientific philosophy emphasized in the writ-ings of Dewey, James, Mead and Pierce" (p. 410). He further remarks onWolstein's emphasis on present and future distortions. In conclusion hestates:

this is indeed an unusual and provocative work. Vhat is most strikingabout it is perhaps the nonclinical orientation. . . . Analysis becomes in thisbook a new type of creative experience for people with difficulties in livingrather than a form of treatment for mental illnesses of various rypes. . . .This book has a self-searching quality that stems from a deep understand-ing of the need for psychotherapists to examine not only their own feelingsto a given patient but their general orientation, which must inevitably becommunicated to patients in the course of their work. [p. 41lJ

Countertransference

By the time Wolstein published Countenransference ir.1959, his viewswere becoming bolder. This work includes a wonderful, clinically il-lustrated chapter on typical countertransference problems, in which

W O T S T E I N ' S U N I Q U E N E S S 3r5

Volstein's clinical confidence is evident. Here Wolstein describes severalmajor character fypes of analysts as revealed in their analytic stances:ove{protective, aggressive, dependent, narcissistic, perfectionistic, de-tached. He suggests the expectable strengths and weaknesses of each ofthese character rypes and the kinds of patients with whom they workbest, those with whom they have the most difficulty, and the kinds ofcountertransference difficulties they are most likely to have. This is theclosest Wolstein comes in all his writing to making diagnostic generaliza-tions.

'Wolstein sees both analyst and patient in a shared experiential field.In taking and expanding this position, he furthers work begun by ClaraThompson (L952), who noted that, when a patient is stuck in a particulartransference, we should look to the countertransference of the analyst.And of course, in Thompson's work, we see the impact of her analyst,Sandor Ferenczi. \Tolstein takes Thompson's work a step further by ar-guing that all transference and countertransference takes place within theshared field of experience. He asserts that there are no ideal analysts. Veall bring our personalities into the room with us. Even when we try tohide behind an analytic stance, our person shows through. V/e may be-come defensive and deflect our patients'observations through interpreta-tions or silence, but this limits the depth of our anall'tic work. In this firstwork on countertransference, Wolstein argues that the patient initiallymay be the more passive participant who is observed, but after sometime, as the patient improves and learns about his distortions, he willstart to wonder about, and look more actively and accurately at, the ana-lyst and the analyst's distortions.

lVolstein (1975a) writes again on countertransference, but now the fo-cus is more emphatically on the psychic symmetry of the shared field ofexperience, and no longer on the specific difficulties of various characterrypes. He is already deeply engaged by his enlarged model of psychicexperience, including anxiety and counteranxiety as well as the newlydefined "I" processes coming from the psychic center of the self.

The important clinical application of this principle of psychic symmetry isthat the psychoanalyst cannot ascribe to himself special status for his socialor ego-interpersonal role with his patient. Nor can he claim it by virtue ofthe symbols of power and prestige ordinarily ascribed to his expertise andprofessionalism. From beginning to end, his psyche is uniquely present inpsychoanalytic process with his patient's for better or worse, until the two

316 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D .

reach some accord about termination. . . . The particular patient and hispsychoanalyst, to the extent of their respective capacities and capabilities,really make thek therapeutic inquiry. . . . the study of unconscious aspectsof transference centers on the psychoanalyst, since if genuhely uncon-scious, they are beyond the patient's scope of awareness. And all thingsbeing equal, the study of unconscious aspects of countertransference cen-ters on the patient, since they are beyond the psychoanalyst's scope ofawareness. [Uncomfortable though this may be for someone who prefersa hierarchical structure.l It is these very unconscious resources of thoughtand feeling . . . that if not evaded nor covered up, may as countertrans-ferred, become sources of enlightenment and healing for the patient whocan see how and why the psychoanalyst, within his own psychic limits,works through the patient's resistances and anxieties in order to obtain abetter grasp of his transferences. Such understanding of his coparticipant. . . may only arise from the patient's open observation of countertransfer-ence. [pP. 79-80]

The analyst's use of countertransference, for example, how much willbe openly acknowledged to the patient, will vary, depending on thequalities and traits of the patient's relatedness in therapy, the analyst'spersonal style, and may vary over the course of the treatment. But fromthe start of an analysis, there is a mutual dependence befween analystand patient for working through and living through the treatment. Bothneed to be free to be spontaneous in order for the deepest work totake place. The psychoanalyst is both a professional expert and a personexperiencing a unique psyche.

The nature of [the analyst's] involvement depends, finally, on how real andfull he can become with his patient, on how deeply probing and explor-atory he can become, on how capable he is of immersing himself in theserious psychological problems of another. . . . The analyst who stays "inrole" or sees himself as the expert, puts up a front, a persona, and withthis front is left engaging the patient's front and his defenses and poweroperations. Both patient and analyst become trapped by the limits of amanipulative device of his own making. 11975a, pp. 81-831

\(olstein suggests that many analysts may wish to cover up such coun-tertransference problems as detachment and loneliness, hostility, sadism,and destructiveness. Frequently they justify this "cover up" on thegrounds that if opened up to therapeutic inquiry, it would interfere with

WOLSTEIN 'S UNIQUENESS

the patient's confrontation of his own problems with himself. But tX/ol-stein stresses that psychoanalysts should not on principle withhold suchcountertransference problems from open and ongoing transaction withtheir patients, and must recognize that even if they are unable to facethem consciously, or acknowledge them with a particular patient, thatdoesn't mean their patients aren't aware of them.

'!(olstein considers this effort to study manifestations of countertrans-ference as they occur in the experiential field of therapy to be of vitalimportance. The direct study of countertransference

intensifies the psychology of inquiry as experienced instead of having atsuch points, to turn awareness toward the more practical concems of be-havior. . . . The analyst's goal is not to modify behavior, but rather to notebehavior as a source of observation and inference about inner experience.. . . In this therapeutic inquiry, it is the patient who, finally, is responsiblefor both the course and consequence of his behavior, and no psychoana-lyst, unless he is quite irrational, can assume any more responsibility for apatient's life than the patient does for it himself. [p. 86J

This is, indeed a far cry from "shrinking."In 1988, Wolstein somewhat uncharacteristically edited a book, Essen-

tial Paperc on Countertransference. In this work he reprinted the fourthchapter, "Observations of Countertransference," from his 1959 book, andincluded both an introductory essay and a new paper entitled "The Plu-ralism of Perspectives on Countertransference." In part, this new paperis an effort at tracing the process by which the ego-interpersonal modeof therapy expanded into the focus on shared experience. \Tolstein re-turns to his argument that the interpersonally improved patient can nowlook differently at his analyst, can look more closely and see somestrengths and limitations of the psychoanalyst's ego or interpersona(1988a, p. 344). My hunch is that this is precisely what happened in'Wolstein's work with Clara Thompson, and that she was more open thanmany analysts to this sort of exploration in part because of her work withFerenczi.

The new paper reflects.Wolstein's increasingly integrated theory.

In the course of struggling with an interlocking transference and counter-transference both participants must be open to seeking their own par-ticular contributions to that intedocking. . . . They cannot . . . work [this

3r7

318 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D .

throughi . . . until either or both are accorded the psychic space in the ex-periential field of therapy to stand behind what they each in their ownspecial ways, feel and think, desire and imagine, believe and realize. Totake such a stand, they soon discover, requires a point of psychic originfrom within the experience of its possessor, unsupported from without bythe ego-interpersonal other in their shared field of inquiry. Now literallyundefended, they must, on their own, fend for themselves. Vhence in theirdirect experience of this transaction, the observable rise of first personalprocesses. . . . At some points in the treatment the patient stands alone withhis/her perceptions and the analyst cannot be of help, at these times thepatient is thrown back on the psychic point of origin in immediate experi-ence from which the first personal processes arise. [pp. 340-3421

From this point on, the patient will have a different relationship to theobservations and inferences of the analyst. As Wolstein (1.975a) had ear-lier stated, "once the patient gets to the center of his first person singular,active climension of self-to his psychic 'I' processes, by which he relatesto his ego interpersonal 'me'patterns-the psychoanalyst can no longerturn him aside, or off, with some arbitrary notions of procedure" (p. 86).

The 196Os: The Development of an Alternative, Third Model ofPsychoanalysis Based on a Shared Field of Experience

'Wolstein's books on transference and countertransference set the stagefor what he would refer to as "the third model of psychoanalysis," the"shared field of experience." In this decade, the 1960s, Wolstein buildsthe structure for this model. He published three books in this decade.The first, Irrational Despair (1962a), a critique of existential therapy, waswritten in part to differentiate his focus on direct experience from theexistentialists. I think this critique freed him to write his most lyricalbook, Freedom to Experience (1964t>), the book that many of his formerpatients hold most dear. I have already suggested its main theme, theneed in a psychoanalysis for new experience, not more interpretations.\Tolstein was especially interested in the movement of psychic experi-ence between conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. As we will see,through staying with immediate experience within the consulting roomand not retreating to the study of outside behavior, the analysis of arxietybecomes possible. To retain the scientific status S(olstein valued sohighly, he needed to balance this emphasis on experience, perhaps too

IToLSTETN'S UNTQUENESS 3r9

similar on the surface to the emerging human-potential movement, witha solid psychoanalytic structure of inquiry.

During the fifties and sixties, Rapaport, Gill, and Klein had system-atized Freudian metapsychology, distinguishing the clinical from themetapsychological theory. But a comparable effort had not been madein relation to psychoanalysis as a whole. Volstein addressed this needand argued that it is not the particular interpretations that make a treat-ment psychoanalytic, but rather its stmcture of inquiry.

Psychoanalysis is a structure of knowledge organized about the inten-sive study of unconscious to conscious experience. "The structure of psy-choanalytic inquiry is science, while the accomplishment of its therapeu-tic experience, is art" (1973a, p. 1,1,2). \Tolstein sought to clarify andsolidi$ the scientific grounding of psychoanalytic theory by clarifyingthe basic elements that all psychoanalytic therapies have in corrunon. Todo this required theorizing at a high level of generalization and abstrac-tion, emphasizing the uniqueness of each patient, analyst, and dyad,while striving to articulate the general properties that define an interac-tion as psychoanalytic. \0olstein was not interested in a theory of devel-opment, of psychopathology, or a theory of mind. His aim was to stay asclose as possible to describing the universal aspects of a psychological the-ory of psychoanalytic therapy. Theories of development, symptom forma-tion, and so forth, all belong to the realm of what he termed "metapsychol-ogy," and there are an infinite number of plausible metapsychologies thatcan be developed by each coparticipant in an analytic inquiry. Thus, just asFreud developed a metapsychology of drives, sexual stages, oedipal con-flicts, Rank focused on birth trauma, and Jung on archetypes, so, too, allanalysts and patients are free to develop their own metapsychologies.

\(/olstein's definition of metapsychology includes everything that is notdirectly experienced in the consulting room. Thus, it includes empiricaldata regarding development, physiology, etiologies of specific disorders,as we[[ as more obviously speculative theories of the nature of objectrelations, origins of particular defenses, and so forth. In distinguishingthe plurality of interpretive metapsychologies from the empirical and sys-tematic core of psychoanalytic theory, !?olstein (197Oa) sought to em-phasize the shared qualities of all psychoanahTic experiences, while re-lieving psychoanalysis of its adjustive thrust.

In this respect, the new psychoanalytic structure is in accord with the dem-ocratic ideal of every man being finally responsible for the place he takes

320 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D ,

and activities he undertakes in his ego-interpersonal environment-whichholds true for all psychoanalytic patients, of course, in or outside the expe-riential field of therapy. Otherwise, psychoanalytic therapists become so-cial agents of adjustment and adaptation to the social order as it is. And ifdisturbed exponents of our present and dissenting culture find it practicallyimpossible, on account of this, to avail themselves of the healing resourcesof psychoanalysis, there is no doubt they are right. [p. 714J

This concern with the structure of psychoanalysis had its fullest articu-lation in the book Tbeory of Psycboanalytic Therap), (1.957). Briefer ver-sions of this (1965, 1969a) and revisions and extensions continued toappear (1973a, b, 7976a, 1977c, d, h, 1981a, d, t982b, 1.985b, l99oa)and formed the backbone of his thinking. Before summarizing the mainelements of this structure, I parallel rVolstein in his historicizing psycho-analytic theory.

'Wolstein built his case for a singular structure of psychoanalytic ther-apy, as distinct from a pluraliry of metapsychologies, by tracing the de-velopment of psychoanalysis from its birth with Breuer and Anna O.aHere we see the cornerstone of psychoanalysis-the development of thetalking cure. He emphasized that the birth of psychoanalytic therapy pre-ceded Freudian metapsychology and consisted of the elements that eventoday make a therapy psychoanalytic. Even though Freud had stated thatany treatment that analyzed transference and resistance was psychoana-Iytic, he and others acted as though the hallmark of psychoanalysis isdrive theory and analysis of the Oedipus complex.

From its earliest beginning in the late 1890's, psychoanalysis has taken thefield of experience created and shared by any two, particular copartici-pants to be the active context of its therapeutic inquiry. As a careful read-ing of the overall structure of psychoanalytic inquiry would soon reveal, itis the creation of the shared, two-way field of experience, and not thewide variety of general metapsychologies set forth to interpret it, that gen-erates the empirical and systematic boundaries of the special province, aswell as the special sources, limits and possibilities, of its therapeutic in-quiry. Il975a, p. 1891

\(olstein suggests that in Freud's time, the appeal to interpretive meta-psychology was intrinsically distancing; perhaps this was all that patients'Vzolstein was fascinated with the early days of psychoanalysis-the time before it was

weighted down with Freudian metapsychology. He published a number of papers on thishistorical perspective, including one that will be published posthumously (in press).

woLSTETN'S UNTQUENESS

and analysts at the turn of the nineteenth century could tolerate. But thepatients seen in mid to late twentieth-century America did not want "thearbitary restraints on the psychological vision of established metapsy-chologies. . . and don't want or need a distanced, adjustment therapy.. . . [Insteadl to be effective, psychoanalysis, offers a shared experience,governed by a structure of inquiry based on both empirical observationand definition and systematic transformation and explanation, by andthrough which a radical pluralism of interpretive metapsychologies enterin" ('1.973a, pp. 107-i08).

'Wolstein proposed the following structure of psychoanalltic inquiry.

(1) Observation of gross experience: psychological processes and pat-terns of problems his patient presents in the experiential field oftherapy;

(2) Definition of operational terms to specify distortions in perception,awareness, and difficulties in living: transference, resistance andanxiety, and countertransference, counterresistance, and counter-anxiety. (In the 1980s, he adds the psychic center of the self);

(3) Definition of three pairs of postulates of transformation: genesisand function; structure and dynamism; immediacy and reflection;

(4) Theory of explanation: the theory of unconscious experience;(5) Perspectives on metapsychology.

\Tolstein's writings on the structure of psychoanalytic inquiry representone dimension of his psychoanalytic concerns and, I suggest, one dimen-sion of his personaliry as well. Another dimension is seen in his contin-ued emphasis on experience, not interpretation, in therapy. Implicit isthe goal of freedom to experience fully and spontaneously, and with thisreduced defensiveness, an increased capacity for intimary and love. Theemphasis on experience and spontaneity was modeled by his own be-havior in the consulting room. He could at times be very quiet, while atother times he would be playful and punning, openly free associating.5Many of his patients remark on the intensely intimate qualiry of engage-ment he encouraged. There was a sense of great freedom within theconsulting room. Volstein would not try to prohibit various disturbing,unusual, even endangering behaviors. He did not limit the population

t At one point in my analysis, Wolstein was talking a lot and not making much sense tome. I asked him what was going on, and he said, "Well, this is analysis, and someone inthe room has to free associate."

32r

322 SUE A. SHAPIRO. Ph.D.

he worked with on the basis of "pathology"-as long as patients werewilling to come at least three times a week and pay the agreed-upon fee,he would work with them. In fact, he thought it was an important signof progress when people would enact some of their more idiosyncratic,antisocial, or maladaptive behaviors in the consulting room-they wereallowing greater intimacy, letting him in closer. Similady, he often re-framed behaviors that others might interpret as resistance-for example,missed sessions-in terms of a greater willingness to let him (Wolstein)in on the patient's ways of dealing with intimacy, or the patient's fearsbecause of becoming too close. lVolstein had strong opinions and wasnot shy about articulating them, but they weren't hidden in interpreta-tions and they did not lead to therapeutic ultimatums. Although he mightdisagree with a patient's course of action or desire for medication, orquestion a patient's involvement with another therapy modality, hewouldn't threaten to terminate treatment if his view wasn't accepted.

The l97os: G€tting to the Heart of the Matter,the Psvchic Center of the Self

Wolstein began the decade of the seventies with the publication ofTbe Human Psycbe in Psycboanalysis (7971.a) and a series of pivotalpapers (1971.c, t972c, 1974a, b, 1975b) that mark a turning point in histhinking. He had laid the groundwork for his new model of psychoanaly-sis based on shared experience, and had formulated a general structureof all psychoanalytic inquiry. He understood the deep structure of psy-choanalysis and could use this to reconsider past and contemporary the-orists and clinicians. Building on the solid articulation of the structure ofpsychoanalysis, and with an eye to correcting the overly social emphasisof the previous decades, Wolstein articulated a theory for people whocomplained not of specific symptoms, but of overall malaise and arxiety,patients who no longer wanted help adapting, and were all too glib atreciting their histories and conforming to Freudian myths and metaphors(for example, Portnoy). Wolstein was aware of the strains of living in theatomic age, with the loss of innocent belief in leaders or public truths(post-Vietnam, post-Watergate). And he also noted that the rapidly ad-vancing technology required people to have an extreme degree of flexi-bility in the face of increased novelty. Meeting this challenge requires asolid, centered sense of self. Complementing and supporting this more

worsTErN 's UNTQUENESS

solid, separate self is the possibility of greater levels of intimacy in socialinteractions.

\(ithin psychoanalytic inquiry, Volstein (197 4b)

takes intimacy to mean the fulfillment of closeness that arises from adeeply private sense of familiar association and expresses the innermostrelatedness of thought and feeling, dream and fantasy, hope and fear anddespair; or more generally those fields of experience in which wo individ-uals come to know one another so well that they may communicate inways that, to the outsider, seem quite ordinary or ambiguous, casual oreven indifferent. . . . The psychology of intimacy cannot therefore be con-ceived and expressed as egoic or intelpersonal experience. . . the experi-ence of intimacy should be conceived, rather, as expressing the active pro-cesses of the psyche Ip. 348). [Butl rf, in fact, intimacy is uniquely individualexperience, then a psychoanalyst would have to become unself consciouswith his patient for it to emerge in their therapeutic field. But if he cannot. . . then he also cannot help his patient to discover the sense and meaningof intimacy first hand as a deeply experienced psychic bond or connection.. . . The psychoanalyst doesn't have to assume a role detached from hisown psychic present . . . instead the perspective in which to describe hiscoparticipation in psychoanalytic inquiry is that of psychic realism. lp.352l

More importantly, Wolstein, in focusing on immediate experience, hadfashioned the lens with which to look deeper into unconscious pro-cesses. He sought to get under the presentation, the socialized, adapted"me patterns," and into the arxiery, and through that anxiery to reachthe "I processes" unique to the individual patient. "I processes are alwaysmoving, changing, and searching; always quirky, original and uniquelyindividual; and therefore always at the psychic center of the affective andcognitive resources" (p. 35D.

Historically, each theoretical model in psychoanalysis suggested a dif-ferent role for the analyst. Instead of the mirror analyst of the id model orthe expert participant observer of the ego-interpersonal model, Wolsteinproposed direct individualized participation in a long-term therapeuticinquiry, devoid, as much as possible, of impersonal knowledge or theo-rizing about patient and analyst (7971a, p. 67). "Too often the analyst'seffort is to treat deeply and uniquely private experience with indirect,impersonal, almost pedunctory technique" (I974b, p. 351). "The out-come of the biological and sociological models, therefore, is reorgariza-tion of attitude and behavior in accordance with rebuilt defense and

323

324 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D .

security operations, renovated goals and controls. These evolutionarytherapies and their variations are then not merely manipulative. Morejustly than in jest, they may be termed new secular religiosities of adjusrment and adaptation whose practice is not psychological and individuat-ing but biosocial and valuational" (1.971a, p. 66).lVolstein was intent ondecreasing the manipulative, adjustive, shrinking activity of psychoana-lysts.

'Wolstein was always seriously engaged in teaching and supervisingpsychoanalysts. During the 1970s, in light of his revised theories, he be-gan reevaluating the traditional style of psychoanalltic supervision. Hewrote the first of several papers on supervision (1972a) in which he ar-gued for the superioriry of supervising in groups.u He found that whenworking within the group format, it was possible to experience andobserve transference, resistance, and anxiefy and countertransference,counterresistance, and counteranxiety in action. He believed that as yourown capacify to be present, aware, spontaneous, and intimate increased,you became a better therapist in ways that couldn't be taught in anyconventional way-as you transformed, the quality of your work trans-formed. He wanted to create the opportunity for supervisees to havenew experiences, and thus become more open to experience and inti-macy with their own patients. He was very respectful of the supervisee'sjudgment, very nonintrusive in the details of work. He wasn't going totell you what to say or what to do; he was much more focused on thegeneral attitude and atmosphere you created.

Because Wolstein was not trying to teach students a particular tech-nique or interpretive schema, but rather was striving within supervisionto work with live experience, the lines between supervision and analysisat times blurred. He pushed to get something genuine, to bypass or cutthrough the supervisee's persona and presentation, and to get on withwhat's really going on. This was often difficult because supervisees oftenfeel primed to "present," to perform, and worry about the supervisor'sevaluation of their work. He found that in his clinical case seminars,which became the model for group supervision, the lines between super-vision and analysis stayed clearer, and it was easier to be.come open to6Interestingly, that same issue of Contemporaly Psychoanalysis also contains a paper by

Montague Ulman, describing his group work with dreams. A similar desire propels bothUllman and Wolstein to explore anxiety-provoking material in a group setting. Each foundthat, paradoxically, in the context of the group, the individual's arxiety didn't have tolimit the exploration. Unfortunately, Wolstein's reluctance to engage others' ideas pre-vented him from using Ullman to bolster his argument

!TOLSTEIN 'S UNIQUENESS 325

this new way of working. Even if the presenter was too anxious to seethe interplay of transference and countertransference, resistance andcounterresistance, arxiety and counteranxiety, others in the group could.

One group supervision meeting stands out vividly in my memory. Itwas in a clinical case seminar with eleven other people, and took placein the ear$ 1980s. One member had volunteered to present for the entiresemester. She was trying her best to do a good lob presenting, but themore she tried, the more forced and false she seemed, and the morechallenging and confrontational \(rolstein became. He had a reputationfor being a difficult supervisor, but I knew from prior experience that assoon as you stopped defending yourself and allowed a genuine expres-sion to emerge, Wolstein's whole tone and attitude would change. Butthe more Volstein pressed, the more anxious the presenter became, themore she resisted his efforts, and the more uncomfortable the wholeclass became. One class member challenged \Wolstein, saying, "of courseshe's being defensive and resistant, look how you are treating her.""Vhat would you do? How would you ask her for the information?"\Tolstein asked. So the student, in a very gentle, supportive manner, be-gan to ask the presenter for the same information that she had refusedto "give" to \folstein. The interaction was indeed superficially very differ-ent, and the class's arxiety level went down substantially. But, the pre-senter didn't give any new information and was as "resistant" as she hadbeen before.

Volstein was delighted with how this class had gone and felt that wehad all learned something important that day about resistance. In retro-spect, I know that he was working out some of his ideas about anxieryand the psychic center of the self at this time, and was also redefiningmany central psychoanalytic concepts to incorporate his new under-standing of the movement of unconscious experience.

Interest in the self and in narcissism was rampant during the 1970s andsucceeding decades. It was during this period that Kohut (1972, 1984)was developing !'self psychology," similar in name to Wolstein's theoriz-ing, but quite different in practice, as I discuss later. By the end of thedecade, Christopher Lasch (1978) wrote The Culture of Narcissism. It willprobably take time before a more definitive analysis of the increasednarcissism of this ^ge can be made; but it seems likely that the break-down of traditional structures of family and religion, the increased andrequired mobility of the American work force, the loss of faith in institu-tions of government, all combined to put enormous pressure on the indi-

326 S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D .

vidual to define himself or herself apart from the usual societal props.The numerous and frequently contradictory roles we mu.st play, and theincreased complexity and novelty we must adapt to, require an ever-stronger sense of self, capable of flexibly moving between various perso-nae. The strain on the "selfl' led to new personality disorders that werefirst described by Fromm, who identified in these personalities an in-creased consumerism and the pathological narcissism that so clearlycomes from insufficient or inadequate sense of self.

In the 1970s, lVolstein was moving toward the articulation and system-atization of what he came to call a "postrelational" model for psychoanal-ysis. (In his last public talk at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis,in the spring of 1.998, he officially referred to his work as postrelational,but he had already described it privately in this way since the 1980s.)Vhile it would be ten years before Greenberg and Mitchell (1,98, coined"relational" as an overarching term to refer to those psychoanalytic theo-ries that focused on relationships and their internalization in the courseof development, \Tolstein abeady was moving away from this focus. Hebelieved that both the id-biological and ego-interpersonal theories hadarrived at a dead end, and feared that psychoanalysis was losing its ap-peal and relevance. It was in this context that he emphasized a psychol-ogy of shared experience. Out of this experiential focus he had gainedincreased access to anxiety, and in working and living through anxiety,had come upon the psychic center of the self. Wolstein thus anticipatedthe way many "relational" psychoanalysts actually define themselves asintegrating a one- and two-person model. Volstein, stressing the impor-tance of both the interpersonal and what he called the "intrapersonal,"developed the first integrative one-person and two-person model. Butunlike most relational analysts, \Tolstein did not embrace the languageof the English object relations-far from it. He did not see the intraper-sonal as merely internalized object relations. Rather, for \Wolstein, theintrapersonal was deeply and uniquely personal. Because of his aversionto biology and extra-analytic research, this intrapersonal, psychic centerof the self was not equated with or fleshed out by theories of tempera-ment or data on neurophysiology, nor did it get grounded in the proprio-ceptive cues that were so important to William James. I think this ulti-mately limited the depth of his theory.

In his clinical work, Wolstein moved freely between an interpersonalsensibility that asked, "\fhy are you telling tbis, to me, now?" and anintrapersonal orientation that acknowledged that sometimes the patient

WOLSTEIN 'S UNIQUENESS 327

was speaking or musing, without regard for who he was speaking to. Atthose times, the analyst might need to attend privately to her own reac-tions to the material, but it would be disruptive to intrude her presenceand experience. At some other time, the same or similar content mightappear in an interpersonally related manner. But Wolstein always maderoom for the private, barely formulated to emerge freely and unselfcon-sciously. He wanted there to be room for both the "I-thou" of Buber and"me-you" of Sullivan. "Rather than oppose the intra human to the interpersonal, we try to build bridges between them, humanizing the intelper-sonal and interpersonalizing the human" (1974a, p. 6). This shift in focusmodifies the therapeutic pursuit of identity and conformiry with averageexpectations, and counterbalances it with a first-hand sense of the direct,the unique and individual. "Psychoanalytic inquiry . . . becomes intensivethrough the dialectic of first-and-second-person relatedness and commu-nication, as a result of unique individualiry becoming integrated with egointerpersonal identiry" Q974a, p. 4).

In some ways this was a theory for the person who was all tooadapted, who lived too much in the persona-the person whose needsfor interpersonal security (adaptation and adjustment) and id satisfactionwere already met, but still got no real satisfaction. lVolstein wanted tobring the psyche into psychoanalysis, not just the persona and the animalinstincts. He wanted to explore the ways in which individuality couldexist and be strengthened, even in the presence of others. As he put it,"The psychology of individuality in shared experience" (7971a, p. 67).(Or, as the Kotska rebbe, whom Wolstein often quoted, said: "If I am Ibecause you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not Iand you are not you. But if I am I and you are you, then I am I and youare you.")

In Wolstein's view, the in vivo analysis of resistance leads to an in-creased confrontation with anxiety and counterarxiety, and the introduc-tion of the clinical experience of the self. The psychoanalyst's self as wellas the patient's self became the counterpoint for the study of anxiety andcounteranxiety. Freud believed that resistance needed to be overcome,and resistance neuroses, which Wolstein argues are the narcissistic neu-roses, could not be treated. The work of Reich, A. Freud, and Hartmann,on one hand, and Sullivan, on the other, made the analysis of resistance,in which defense and security operations were explored and interpreted,possible. \fhen this exploration stayed in the consulting room, rather

328 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D .

than focusing on reported incidents from outside the consulting room,and resistance was directly engaged, the underlying anxiety emerged.

Along with the movement of consciousness along the continuum ofunconscious, preconscious, and conscious, is the movement of the indi-vidual along a continuum of individuation, participation, and intimary. Itis during this period of his theorizingthat Volstein redefines many clas-sic psychoanalytic terms.

First he emphasizes the difference befween the socialized, adapted,"me" patterns that were the focus of ego-adaptational and interpersonalpsychoanalyses, and the "I" processes that are the gold that lies beyondanxiety, beyond defenses and adaptive persona. Unlike'Winnicott's trueself-false self dichotomy, 'Wolstein sees the self as including both psycheand persona and believes that both I processes and me patterns are nec-essary for living. 'Wolstein, however, implies there is some optimal bal-ance for any given individual at any particular moment. Within a givensession and over the course of treatment, analyst and patient can bothobserve the shifting balance and flow of these processes and patterns asthey emerge in the consulting room.

Transference, resistance, and anxiety are now redefined in terms ofthe difficulties arising from individuation and participation. Of the threeterms, it is primarily transference, conscious and unconscious, that repre-sents unique individuality because it generates the integrative effort toput more of the experience of self into the behavior of the persona.

"The particular point of transference, is to individuate in terms of one'sown unique distortions" (1974a, p.7).

Resistance is participation in terms of the other's "adaptive operations."This is an interesting understanding of resistance as staying too much inthe domain of the persona, too adapted to social expectations, fearful orunable to risk spontaneity or the shift into deeper, less rational or adap-tive modes of relating. Frequently we experience this in sessions thatseem to go nowhere; the patient stays on the surface, reflecting or report-ing instead of being.

Anxiety is "to withhold individuating or participating because the dia-lectic of the fwo becomes so disturbed as to break down." In the supervi-sion groups Wolstein ran, members could often see each other reach apoint of extreme anxiety, not knowing what was expected-could youreally say what you felt? Did you have to be a "good" student? And what,exactly, would that entail? At times in these groups your head would bespinning, you would be sputtering-suddenly at a loss for words, or a

\ roLSTErN'S UNTQUENESS

way to be. Repeatedly I saw that the way out of this state was to embraceit and recognize how much of what comes to mind is an excuse, a coverup. If I can acknowledge the confusion and frustration, and the shameof being caught in these states, the way to get beyond them will come.For me, \Tolstein's attitude toward anxiety resembles the instruction inmany forms of body work to go into pain, to stop resisting it. If you letit be a teacher, it then melts away, often leaving pleasure or exhilarationin its wake.

The self "is singular and active, moving and searching, changing andunfolding along the living edge of conscious and unconscious experi-ence, as it extends indefinitely into both past and future through its pres-ent as the sense of owning and ordering one's increasingly shareableexperience of uniqueness" (197 4a).

Adolescent identity cnsrs "is in fact a crisis of disidentity. . . . It ariseswhen the unique experience of self is not developed enough to guide itsfurther individuation. It arises from a failed or underdeveloped psychicindividuality being exposed to difficult, variously conflicting, culturalstandards of value and social pattems of behavior" (1,)74a, p. 8).

Depression "is a crisis of individualiry, a crisis of uniqueness of thepsyche, an intensive problem in the self direction of experience in rela-tion to that complex of conditioned ego interpersonal relations. rJ(rhenextrospection is blocked the projector becomes depressed because heliterally cannot express his uniquely individual affective and cognitiveexperience. . . . All the well known clinical symptoms of anxiety and de-pression, boredom and alienation, emptiness and absurdity may only re-flect the increasing repression of unique psychic individualify. Yet to re-press it at present may also be the best way to preserve it for furtherintegral development at some future time. . . . From a psychic point ofview, we may therefore, speak of an emergent, generative theory of ex-perience and behavior. And their environment, as a corollary is not onlygiven but made. . . .Important clues to psychic individualiry, becausethey are distorted and disguised, are often found in observations of theunexpected. That is, the patient so organizes his ego interpersonal andbehavioral systems that he conspicuously absents signs of immediacy,directness of unself-consciousness from his working relationship with hispsychoanalyst. . . . The patient might mention something about a physi-cal activity or being in a new place, suggesting how in such self expres-sive activities he feels something he has not yet accepted, let alone de-scribed in full awareness before," or some patients let some awkward,

329

330 SUE A. SHAPIRO, Ph.D.

clumsy, deeply personal and private idiosyncrasy emerge (1974a, pp.11-14). The ego-interpersonal perspective is geared toward smoothingover the individual quirk, whereas lilTolstein wants to underscore andenlarge it.

Volstein's theory was the obverse of Sullivan. Sullivan was exquisitelysensitive to the need for interpersonal security, for fitting in, living in aconsensual wodd. Sullivan, working with deeply disturbed individuals,helped them and their therapists to recognize their common humanity.But \Uolstein, working in a different historical moment and with a differ-ent patient population, wanted his patients to be centered enough, se-cure in their own experience to be independent of the judgment of oth-ers. He was writing in a post-Nuremberg era, in which the ability to goagainst public opinion was both heroic and essential, and on a moremundane note, with people who rebelled against the man in the grayflannel suit and the "1950s housewife"-at times conforming in their veryrebellion, but wanting to be able to think for themselves.

\(zhile Wolstein continued to write prolifically throughout the eightiesand nineties, his major work had been completed by the end of theseventies. He wrote a number of articles that are of historical interest intheir focus on Ferenczi's influence on American psychoanalysis. He alsowrote several articles that further refine his thinking about the relation-ship between anxiety and the self. And he wrote quite a number of bookreviews.

Relationship to Other Thinkers

At times, Volstein's "message" seems close to that of the human-potential movement, to Abraham Maslow, among others. But he was firstand foremost a psychoanalyst who believed in the scientific and rationalbasis of his work. lVhile he offered himself and his patients a vital andvibrant experience, he grounded this experience in a profound under-standing of the psychoanalytic literature. He truly believed in the puregold of psychoanalysis-anything less was not rigorous enough, whetheror not it cured or healed.

Many of Volstein's students identiff themselves as relational psycho-analysts and saw \(/olstein as a quintessential relational psychoanalystwho was one of the first to integrate a one- and tvro-person model.'$Tolstein, however, did not consider himself a relational psychoanalyst.He saw relational as remaining too tied to what he called the "second

w o L S T E I N ' S U N T Q U E N E S S

stage of psychoanalytic theorizing." He also rejected the tendency, espe-cially of the English object relations theorists, to infantilize the patientand to overinterpret. He thought the name "relational" demoted the im-portance of singular or individual experience, instead suggesting that allthat is called "self is actually internalized experiences with others. Thisview comes very close to Sullivan's extreme interpersonalism. Some rela-tional theorists, like Ghent (1992>, are genuinely concerned with nonin-terpersonal dimensions and determinants of experience, such as temper-ament, physiology, genetics, biology. Other relational theorists argue aversion of "there is no such thing as ababy, but a baby and caretaker,"or that unique individuality and temperament are not useful concepts,because they don't develop without an interpersonal context. Althoughthe latter may ultimately be true, it minimizes or even denies the contri-bution of the individual.

Although rVolstein was not interested in supporting his position withbiological or developmental findings, he nonetheless was one of thefiercest proponents of a centered, individual self who could both relateto others and experience apart from others. In his description of treat-ment as occurring between two selves, he describes an experience thatresembles Jessica Benjamin's (1990, 1992) account of intersubjectivify-the encounter of another subject or agent of experience. 'Whereas sheemphasizes the need for the patient or child to experience the subjectiv-ity or agency of the mother-analyst, \Tolstein equally emphasizes theneed for the analyst to recognize the patient as subject and agent. Just asa parent must recognize the unique qualities and needs of a particularchild, or a partner in love must go beyond "men are from mars andwomen from venus," so, too, an analyst must get beyond his or her alle-giance to various metapsychological theories and diagnostic assumptionsand recognize the individual person who arrives in the office with his orher own set of values, theories, conflicts, and conscious and unconscionsprocesses. The patient finally must be able to do this vis-)-vis the analystas well. This recognition of the other, in this case the analyst, is one oflVolstein's main criteria for termination.

Heinz Kohut is the theorist who, at first glance, may seem as con-cerned with the individual self as rWolstein is. u7olstein wrote severalarticles and reviews that address Kohut's self psychology. His opinion ofKohut's work is evident in his choice of title for the review of this work."The Lost Uniqueness of Kohut's Self Psychology" (1987c). This reviewis a polemic against Kohut and his conservative, ego-interpersonal

331

332 S U E A . S H A P I R O , P h . D .

model, in which Kohut remains hidden. Volstein points out the logicalinconsistencies in his writing and sees them as stemming, at least in part,from his desire to stay within the traditional psychoanalytic fold. Kohut'sselfobjects are, for'$Tolstein, too external to the self. And the analyst'srole is too prescribed for \folstein's taste. In Wolstein's view, Kohut de-nies the impact of the person of the analyst and his approach is overlymanipulative and contrived.

Criticisms and Reasons for Relative ObscuriW

Levenson (1996) points out that the focus of one's metapsychology isthe locus of countertransference. \(rolstein's insistent separateness anduniqueness were both inspiring and frustrating, both transformative andresistive. He rarely, if ever, acknowledged others' work as influential inhis thinking. He didn't see much reason for a dialogue of ideas. Therewas his view, and then there were others'views, which generally weremistaken, illogical, and inconsistent. At his worst, Wolstein sounded likea lone cowboy, contemptuous of those who listened to the opinions ofothers or who needed consensual validation, personally counterdepen-dent and denying that others had genuine needs.

Several illustrations of this come to mind. In my own analysis therewere the times when Wolstein didn't seem to understand how, as a sixyear old or eight year old, I wasn't able to get my parents to agree withmy wishes about, for example, staying home and not going to camp forthe summer. At another time, in a supervision group, the person present-ing described how her patient finally took notice when the third personat ^ parry said that he seemed drunk. Wolstein took issue with the ideaof listening to others' views of one's behavior.

At his best, Wolstein exemplified the analyst who is interested as muchin his patients' strengths and achievements as in their pathology, whobelieved, like Oprah, that we shouldn't be afraid of our dreams becauseGod has even bigger dreams for us than we can imagine.

I think, ultimately, that \Tolstein was blind to the deep-seated patiar-chal, authoritarian core of his own personality. He may have been anti-authority when it came to others, and would encourage his patients andstudents to look for their own solutions-but only up to a point. Perhapsthere was some deep identification with his ancestral rabbinical rootsthat could not be shaken.

\Tolstein's ease with a philosophical style of inquiry and argument can

WOLSTEIN 'S UNIQUENESS 333

be off-putting and has at times been misunderstood, as in early reactionto his book Transference (see Heimann, 7956) or his ongoing emphasison the structure of psychoanalytic inquiry versus the experience of psy-choanalytic therapy.

Many people find Wolstein's writing exceedingly difficult. His sryle isGermanic and philosophical, complete with extended sentences, idio-syncratic language, and few clinical references. Over the years, Volsteinwas less interested in citing the authors whose work had influenced him.Often, in the first work in a new direction, for example Freedom to ErQe-rtence (1964b), which I think is his most daring book, he would notesources of his thinking, but in subsequent developments of this line ofthinking, he wouldn't. In fairness, he never attached importance to hav-ing his own work cited-to claiming authorship. He would often say thathis ideas were now in the river of knowledge. They were there to beused-in that sense, there was little egoic attachment to them. But hisrefusal to connect his ideas or place them in context with other theoristscould be maddening and deprived everyone of a genuine dialogue. Attimes it seemed as though he went out of his way to detach himself andhis ideas from others working in the field. For example, he hated anycomparison with \Tinnicott or any of the English school because he sawthem as infantilizing the patient. \flolstein iust kept on with his "re-search." He would describe walking around with his clipboard at theready, or going to a coffee shop to sit and write in his clinical journal.Rather contemptLlously, he claimed to be postrelational just as the rela-tional track at New York University was forming. He would not link hisideas with others who used similar terminology or seemed to be address-ing similar concerns.

He would state that reviews of the literature, integration of empiricalfindings from other fields, could be done by others. This position is de-ceptive. In fact, he wrote quite a few scholarly review essays for thisjournal. Of course, no matter what the task set before \Tolstein-a re-view essay, a position on a panel-what was delivered was always quin-tessential l7olstein. Like a Horowitz or Callas, the voice and style of thepresenter was never obscured. He would not have accepted this type ofassignment (a review essay sununarizing another's work), or if he had,the essay would be unabashedly a statement of his own current views.

Vriting at a high level of abstraction made it difficult for many of hisreaders without first-hand experience to understand him. For this reasonperhaps, many of his patients found themselves at pains to describe to

S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D .

others the ways in which his actual work and presence in the room dif-fered from his writings. His writings can be difficult, dense, idiosyncrati-cally written, not user friendly. In person he could be funny, loving punsand much of pop culture. He could be irreverent and coarse, freely curs-ing, spontaneous and playful; he was rarely interpretive in any traditionalsense of the word.

A final difficulty that many people have with \trolstein's writing is thathe almost never helps the reader out with clinical examples (the mainexceptions are in his books Countertransference and Freedom to Weri-ence). Those of us who worked clinically with him might be able toread between the lines and supply our own examples of how his theorytranslated into clinical practice, but other readers would be hard-pressedto recognize the playful spontaneity of his sessions from the dense-ness of his writing. The closest many people came to this was in thediscussion periods after a presentation in which a lively, funny lWolsteinwould surface. Personal experience with \fobtein leads the reader tohear his idiosyncratic cadences and inflections while reading an other-wise dry and difficult text. I hope in this essay I have succeeded insftiking a balance between making !flolstein's ideas more accessibleand, at the same time, giving a feel for his unique way of expressinghimself.

Postscript

Inasmuch as no reading of texts can be purely objective, and any read-ing of one's former analyst's work is going to be especially colored, itseems only right that I state the bare facts of my knowledge of BenWolstein and his work.

I first became acquainted with \Tolstein through his book Transferencein 1967, while a junior at college and writing my first psychology paper,"Transference in Education." In 1971, as a third-year student in a doctoralprogram in clinical psychology, I began supervision with lWolstein,seeing him once a week for two years. He had a reputation for beingdifficult but exciting, and good for people who were really serious aboutthe work. ti(/e rarely talked about my patients, but my clinical work withthem went very deep and was quite powerful for them and for me. Iremember those sessions as being some of the most anxiety-provokingmoments of my life. Wolstein was a formidable man who forced me toconfront my "funny" speech, my ways of hedging and being indirect. He

wotsTErN 's UNTQUENESS 33'

also encouraged me to really think-no pretend thinking.T The analysisI was in at the time seemed pale by comparison to my time in his consult-ing room. This was not an unusual experience and may have contributedto some tension between \Tolstein and his colleagues.

The depth of my fascination with \Tolstein and some of the centralelements in my transference are clear from a dream I had at the start ofmy second year of supervision. In the dream I am going to \Tolstein's tosee the birthday present he gave Irma (his wife). Everyone is talkingabout it, and many people have come to see it. His office is in his home,and instead of going to the right when I walk in, to get to his office, Ican see the present in the living room at my left. It is a clear crystalgeodesic dome, the size of a big bed. It is made of clear, clean water,and on the bottom are chunks of redwood tree bark (which they sell inthe redwood forests). From these pieces of bark are growing light greenfronds, like ferns, that open at the surface of the dome. It is indeed abeautiful but curious stnrcture. It has all the angles of a geodesic dome,but it is unclear to me what gives it its form, because it is all water andfronds with no container. I ask Wolstein, "How does it stay together?""Peanut butter," he says.

Over the years I've had many thoughts about this dream; most re-cently, as I worked on this article, I was struck by how much I marvelled,then and now, at the strength of Wolstein's frame and structure withoutany visible extemal structure.

I left New York for an internship in Boston, and when I debated aboutstaying there when the internship ended, part of what pulled me back toNew York was my desire to work with \Tolstein. At the time, I describedmyself as feeling like a genie stuck in Aladdin's lamp. The space was toocramped, and the only place I felt I could be my full size was when Iplayed certain pieces at the piano-Beethoven's "Appasionata," Chopin'sscherzi and ballades, Brahms's rhapsodies. Much as I had been terrifiedin Wolstein's presence, I felt that it was an opportunity to break out ofthat lamp. I was right. Reading over the papers that \(olstein was work-ing on during this period (the 1970s), I understand fully why I and so

7 \t(uhen I was really upset and feeling victimized by lVolstein I could count on my col-leagues'and friends' horror when I recounted how u7olstein once told me to "stop actinglike a dumb cunt." I knew at the time he was trying to push me out of my childishhysterical presentation-it certainly shocked me that he put it this way, and it added tomy confusion about how to "please" him. What kind of guy, in those years, wore a surt,was so intelligent, but spoke that way? How could I respond when I wanted to be botha "good," deferential student and be taken seriously by him?

336 S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D ,

many of my close friends were drawn to working with him. Those of uswho were deeply touched by the sixties, who were damned if we wouldadapt and straighten up, could feel comfortable with an analyst whorailed against the social-conforming self, and seemed instead to promisea deeply personal and unique encounter.

I got settled back in New York, working at a state hospital and a fee-for-service clinic, and called \Tolstein to start analysis. I remember walk-ing up to his office building, having a fantasy of him jumping out thewindow. The head of residenry training at Mclean had just stunned theentire communify with his suicide, and I, with my yet-unrecognizedhistory of parental depressions, feared the worst. Could I really trustWolstein that he stay the course, that he not get sick and die, that he notgo through personal crises and tragedies that would take his mind off ofme, would I drive him crazy? I asked him all of this on the first day backin his office, but this time as a patient. Although he was smart enoughto make no guarantees, to the best of his knowledge he was in goodhealth-both mental and physical. And so we began. 10(re both, indeed,were very lucky during the years we worked together. Tragedies hadstruck him in the years prior to our acquaintance and many years after Ihad completed my analytic work with him. I was in analysis for four yearsat that time, and then another four years from 1983 to 1987.I also hadthe opportunity to be in his clinical case seminar in t982, while I was acandidate at the New York University Postdoctoral Program. Followingthe end of my second analysis in 1987 a collegial relationship developed,which turned into a friendship during the last years of his life.

I found \flolstein much less daunting as an analyst than as a supervisor,much more supportive and loving. Certain ovedaps in our lives and inter-ests added to my delight in working with him. \(re had both come fromOrthodox Jewish homes-although his was Hassidic, and this was amuch greater difference than at first I realized. I had gone to a yeshivafor thirteen years. 'We had both rebelled, but felt deeply moved and con-nected to aspects of Jewish tradition. Some of my happiest momentswere when I had a Friday evening session, which somehow often movedboth of us in the direction of Yiddish, pruyer, and zemiroth (religioussongs). These were infrequent indulgences, but felt so good. Sometimes\Tolstein would speak Yiddish to me; I didn't understand a word of it,but the melody of it was so soothing. Our common Orthodox familybackground, which made him seem familiar, for a long while obscuredthe centraliry of gender differences in our upbringing. I chose to focus

WOLSTEIN 'S UNIQUENESS 337

on our similarities, only later real\zing some of his mistaken assumptionsabout the ways my parents treated me were, at least in part, genderrelated. He assumed that my parents took delight in my achieve-ments and would show me off, when in fact, as a girl child, my accom-plishments were always of dubious value and, at best, ambivalent inter-est. Despite numerous examples of this in my history, he never could"get" it.

We also both studied yoga, and over time I came to study with his rwoprimary teachers, Alan Bateman and Swami Bua. So yoga practice andvarious postures became part of our metapsychology. Later I learnedthat, as a child, he had played the piano rather seriously, but this seemednot to have left him with a deep appreciation of music. In fact, it madehim somewhat skeptical and critical of the importance music had in mylife.

There were also many differences. He was a systematic thinker and Iam not; I am more intuitive and synthetic. He was steeped in philosophy,and I couldn't follow most philosophical texts. He could be quite for-mal-a style familiar to me through my family, but one which I was hell-bent on rejecting. He was concerned only with psychoanalysis, and hadno truck with other forms of therapy, no interest in other systems ofgaining understanding or knowledge of human experience. I wanted tostudy the full range of disciplines that sought to understand human expe-rience, and I also eagerly tried many different treatment modalities. I hadgrown up an only child, the product of divorce in a communify thatfrowned on divorce, and found myself thoroughly revelling in the ex-cesses of the sixties. He was deeply committed to monogamy and mar-riage and could be quite judgmental with behavior that ran counter tothese values. He took his work completely seriously. When he would getcalls from prospective patients, he would state over the phone that heonly conducted analysis, only saw people three or more times a week.

Wolstein was also exceedingly stubborn, a qualiry that at times washelpful to me-he gave me something to fight against. But at other timesthis could be infuriating. He always answered the phone in sessions,rarely would put on the air conditioner, and although I could say any-thing I wanted in whatever manner I wanted about these behaviors, therewas no way that he would alter his behavior.

Despite what he wrote, in my experience, Volstein rarely acknowl-edged countertransference, even when challenged. This trait led one for-

338 SUE A. SHAPIRO, Ph.D.

mer patient to quip that \Tolstein was the only psychoanalyst who didn'thave an unconscious.

On March 7,1999, on the plane to Bali for two weeks of yoga, I wrotea letter to \Tolstein.

"You died and I was asked to write this essay giving me the opportu-nity to work through/assimilate your writing. But your death deprivesme of a lively or alive dialogue with you, and yet of course the dialogueexists and continues within me. I remember once before a sufiuner vaca-tion you remarked, how could I be lonely, how could anyone be lonelywhen there was the chance to 'be'with various writers, while readingtheir work.

"As I live with you over the course of these months, spending mySaturdays consumed and surrounded by you, I can't help thinking howappropriate-this Sabbath ritual. Tonight, I am on a plane to Bali for arwo-week yoga intensive and I am taking you with me. I will be missingyour memorial service, but I know this is the choice you would havemade.

"First off, let me say that I question my qualifications to do this job.On the one hand, you chose me to work on a biography of your ana-lyst-Clara Thompson. From that, I can infer that you trusted my abilitiesas a snoop and detective and trusted me to be both truthful and fair tothe woman you admired and loved so much. But am I the best choiceto summarize your life's work? I think you believed me lazy as athinker-more intuitive and less rigorous and analytic, impatient whenconfronted with weighty abstract ideas. Certainly that is my own view ofmyself. I think, too, that despite your support of a woman being seriousin her work, your encouragement of my writing, you were in the endmore comfortable exchanging ideas with men.

"I saw you in some ways as a man's man. You had your macho heavy-drinking crew in your younger days, and despite your transformationthrough yoga, your increased flexibility, you remained relatively un-touched by the social changes of feminism and queer theory. You finallyacceded to your wife lrma's wish that you be more involved in domesticchores when she got sick. But until then, and whenever the opportunityarose, you took refuge in thinking, reading, and writing-an old styleTalmudic scholar, now a scholar of psychoanalysis, but all the same,someone entitled to his privacy and long hours with his books. Youalways took your work very seriously and seemed to have utmost confi-dence that your ideas were worth pursuing. In many ways you seemed

WOLSTEIN 'S UNIQUENESS

to live out the role of the Jewish scholar, but in a secular, psychoanalyticdomain.

"Some more of our differences: your Midwesternness; your old-boysexism; your disinterest in physiology, empirical psychology, or develop-mental psychology; your conviction that psychoanalysis is THE way totreat people."

This letter never got finished. I just felt overcome with sadness and therecognition that I miss him terribly. I feel very strange knowing that I willget the last word, but the price I pay is being deprived of his response. Astime has gone by and this essay has proven more difficult to write thanI had expected, I've come to be less certain over who, in fact. has thelast word. I have certainly been forced to think in a different way inorder to grasp Volstein's way of thinking, and I believe he would haveapproved. This essay has also functioned as a final analysis withVolstein, leading me to a greater recognition of our differences andgreater appreciation for his uniqueness. In that sense, I satisfy his re-quirements for termination.

REFERENCES

Aron, L. (1996). A Meeting of Minds: Mutuatity in Psycboanatysrs. Hillsdale, NJ: The Ana-lyt.ic Press.

Aron, 1.. & Harris, A., eds. (1993). Tbe l4acy of Sandor Fercnczi. Hillsdale, NJ: The AnalyticPress.

Beniamin, J. o9E0). An outline of intersubiectivity: The development of recognition. psl-c b oana lytic Pqc b o log1t, 7 :33 -46.

Benjamin, l' (.1992). Recognition and destruction: An outline of inrersubjectivity. ln: Rela-tional Penlnctiws in Psycboanalyrs, ed. N. Skolnick & S. Warshaw. Hillsdale, NJ: TheAnalytic Press.

Epstein, L. & Feiner, A., eds. (1979). countertransference: The Tberapist's contribution totbe Tberawtic Situation. New york: Aronson.

Fairbaim, w. R. D. (t952). psycboanalytk Studies of tbe pe/I,onali4l. London: Tavistock.Ferenczi, S. (1932). Clinical Diary of Sandor Fetenczi, ed. J. Dupont. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1p88.Ferenczi, S. (1933). Confusion of tongues berween adults and the child. In: Final Contribu-

tions to the Problems and Metbods ofPsycho-Analysis.London: Karnac Books, 19g0, pp.156-157.

Ferenczi, S. & Rank, O. (1924). Tbe Derclopment of psycboarulysrs. New york: Dover pub-lications, 1956.

Flanagan, O. (1997). Tbe Science of tbe Mind.2nd Ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.Fosshage, J. (1992). Self psychology: The self and its vicissitudes within a relational matrix.

rn: Relatiorul PersryctitEs in Psycboanalysrs, ed. N. Skolnick & S. warshaw. Hillsdale,NJ: The Anal''tic Press.

339

340 S U E A . S H A P I R O . P h . D .

Freud, A. (1936). Tbe Ego and tbe Mecbanisms of Defense. New York: Inrernational Univer-sities Press.

Ghent, E. (1992). Foreword. Relational Perspectioes in Psycboanalyls, ed. N. Skolnick &S. Warshaw. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.

Gill, M. M. (1976). Metapsychology is not psychology.In: Psycbologlt uetsus Metapsycbol-ogt, ed. M. M. cill & P. S. Holzman. Psycbological Issues, Monograph 36. New york:Basic Books, pp. 71-105.

Gouin.lock, J., ed. (1994). Tbe Moral Writings of Jobn Deuey. Reu. Ed. New York: prome-theus Books.

Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). Object Relations in Psycboanalyic Tbeory. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

GrUnbaum, A. (1984). Tbe Foundations of Psycboanalysr. Berkeley, CA: University of Cali-fornia Press.

Hartmann, H. (1930). Ego Psychologjt and the Prcblem of Adaptation. New york: Intema-tional Universities Press, 1958.

Haynal, A. (1989). ContmtEsies in Psycboanalytic Metbod. New York: New York Univer-sity Press.

Hapvard, J. W. (199D. Scientific merhod and validation. Ln: Gentle Bridges: ConLersatiol.suitb tbe Dalai InnTa on the Sciences of Mind, ed. J. W. Hapvard & F. J. Varela. Boston,MA: Shambhala.

Heimann, P. (1956). Review of B. Volstein, Trarsference: Its Meanirxg and Function inPsychoanalytic Tberapy. Intemational Joumal of Psycbo-Analysis, 3j:491-493.

Hoft, R. (1981). The death and transfiguration of metapsycholc,gy. Intenatiottal Reuieut ofPryc b o- A na lltsis, 8 :729 -1, 43 -

Holt, R. (1985). The current status of psychoanalytic theory. Psycboanatytic Psycholog!, 3l289-315.

Hook, S., ed. (1959). Psychoanalysis, Scientific Metbod, and philosopby. A SruInsiutn.New York: New York University Press.

Horney, K. (1937). 1he Neurctic Personality of Our Time. New york: Norton.Jackson, D. D. (1968). Human Communication: Tberary, Communication, and Cbange.

Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior Books.James, uf. (789D. Pnnciples of Psycbologlt. Vol. 1. New York: Dover Publications, 1950.Kfein, G. (1976). Psycboanalyic Tbeory. New York: Internarional Universiries Press.Kfenbort, I. (f978). Another look at Sullivan's concepr of individualiry. Contemporary psy-

c b oanalysis, 14:1,25-135.Kohut, H. (1972). The Analysis oJ tbe Sef New York: Intemational Universities press.Kohut, H. (1977). Restoration of tbe Sef New York: International Universities press.Kohut, H. Q9M). Hctw doa Pqrcbrnnaltsis Cure? Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Lasch, C. (1978). Culture of Narcissism. New York: Norton.Levenson, E. (1990. The politics of interpretarion. Contemporary pslcboanalysis, 32:531-

648.Maines, R. P. (1999). The Tecbnologlt of Orgasm: HJ)steria, tbe Vibrator, and Womm's

Sexual Satisfaction. Baltlrnore, MD: Johns Hopkins University press.Popper, K. & Eccles, J. 0977). The Self and lts Brain. New York: Springer International.Rapaport, D. (1960). The Structure of Psychoarxalytic Tbeory: A Systematizing Attempt. psy-

cbological lssares, Monograph 6. New York: International Universities press.Rapaport, D. & cill, M. M. (195D. The points of view and assumptions of metapsychology.

Intemationcl fouma I of Psycho-An alysis, 4O:153-162.Reich, \V. (1933). Cbaracter Analysis. New York: Orgone Insritute Press, 1945.Shapiro, S. A. (1981). Biological diversity as a foundation for the theory of unique individu-

aliry. Presented at New York University Postdoctoral program.

W O L S T E I N ' S U N I Q U E N E S S

Shapiro, S. A. (1993). Clara Thompson: Ferenczi's messenger with half a message. ln: Theregacy of sandor Fercnczi, ed. L. Aron & A. Harris. Hillsdale, NJ; The Analytic press.

singer, J. (1956). Review of Transference. Joumal of Abnonnal and sociat piycbology, 5o:470-411..

Skolnick, N. & rVarshaw, S. eds. (1992). Relational petspecttues in prycboanalysis. Hillsdale,NJ: The Analltic Press.

stern, D. (1983). unformulared experience. cortemporary psycboanarysis, 19:7|-99.stern, D. Q997). Unformulated kperience: Frorn Dissociation to Imaginatian in psycbo-

analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: The Anallric press.stolorow, R. (1995). An inter.subiective view of self psychology. Psycboanalytic Dialogues,

5:393-399.Stolorow, R. & Brandschaft, B. (1994). Tbe Intenubjectiue persryctiue. Nonhvale, NJ: Jason

Aronson.Sullivan, H. S. (1940). Corrceptions of Modem psychiatry. r0rashington, DC: IJf. A. Whire

Psychiatric Foundation.Tartakoff, H. 0955). Recent books on psychoanalytic technique: A comparative sardy.Jour-

nal of tbe American Psycboanalyic Ass(rciation, 4:3lg_343.Thompson, C. M. (1950). Psycfumna[xis. New york: Hermirage.Thompson, C. M. Q,952). Counterrransference. Sarniksa, 6:205-217.

14 East 4th Street, Suite 402New York, NY 10012

34r