Stanley Stern (1933-2022) was a psychoanalyst in Phoenix, Arizona. Part of becoming an analyst is to undergo analytic training with a practicing expert. He was assigned to Hans Loewald (1906-1993) in the late 1960s and writes about the experience in the essay, "My Experience of Analysis With Loewald" (2009) published in The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, vol. 78(4). The essay provides many insights into what therapy is, such as: "The analyst functions at a higher level of organization than the patient, making the analytic relationship analogous to that between an ideal parent and a child" (p. 1025). 

At the end of his essay, Stern wrote, "The analytic atmosphere of acceptance, compassion, and analytic love has allowed me to more 'freely associate,' to increasingly trust my thoughts and feelings, and to find my own voice" (p. 1029).

Nancy McWilliams is a psychoanalyst who believes “psychotherapy is a healing relationship in which you might use several different kinds of techniques . . . [and where] the healing relationship is the definitional part of it. . . . [It’s point is to increase] the meaningfulness of life or the satisfactions of life.” This is on p. 3 of An Interview with Nancy McWilliams, PhD, by Louis Roussel (2010), which can be found at http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/psychoanalytic

“I believe all therapy is a dialogue between two people trying to determine what works and what doesn’t as we try to live the best lives we can” (p. 33). Roy Clymer said this in his article, “The Puzzle of PTSD” (2010, November/December), in Psychotherapy Networker, 34(6), 26-33, 60.

Psychotherapy “is at bottom a dialectical relationship between doctor and patient. It is an encounter, a discussion between two psychic wholes, in which knowledge is used only as a tool. The goal is transformation” (p. 554). Carl Jung (1939). “Foreword” to Suzuki’s Introduction to Zen Buddhism in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 11, pp. 538-557).

“In the end, [therapy] means ‘Be true to your responsibilities, delay immediate gratification, and settle into a longer view’.” This is Richard Handler quotingJonathan Engel,on page 68 ofPsychotherapy Networker(2009, May/June), in his review of Engel's book:American Therapy: The rise of psychotherapy in the United States].

On page 68 of Handler's review of Jonathan Engel's American Therapy: The rise of psychotherapy in the United States, Handler wrote: “For Engel, therapy is ultimately an exercise in learning and gradual self-improvement. He tells us that ‘psychotherapy works best when it leverages a patient’s desire to participate more productively in the world around him, when the patient is genuinely committed to the difficult process of acquiring new, healthy skills.’ He even paraphrases Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who said, according to Engel, that the ‘common trait of all emotionally healthy people is a desire to get to work’.”

Again, from page 68 of Handler's review of Jonathan Engel's American Therapy: The rise of psychotherapy in the United States: “The central question that underlies Engel’s book is a basic one: what, after all, is therapy? Observers have wrestled with this question for decades. The original Freudians viewed therapy as an excursion in an alternative reality of the inner psyche. Like submariners looking for the sunken Titanic, they saw themselves exploring the murk of the unconscious. Their mission was to excavate truths that, once faced and addressed, could transform lives and reduce suffering. Cognitive behavioral therapists—roll-up-your-sleeves pragmatists, to whom Engel is partial—abandoned this obsession with mysteries of the mind. They favor tinkering with patterns of thought that lie closer to the surface of everyday awareness. Clearly influenced by the cognitive perspective, Engel believes that therapy is fundamentally an educational enterprise: it operates by ‘fixing broken bonds’ and readjusting ‘people to normal social intercourse,’ and works by ‘education rather than analyzing'."

“Clients come in for tutoring when their own inquiry process bogs down, when they weren’t finding the answers they needed within the limited framework they were using. As therapist-educators, we teach, lead, explore, and influence. We help in the formulation of better questions that lead toward more productive and interesting answers. Good questions are those that generate additional options for living.” Jay Efran, Michael Lukens, & Robert Lukens wrote this on page 181 of their book Language Structure and Change: Frameworks of Meaning in Psychotherapy (1990).

“Instead of tinkering with thoughts as if they were discrete, easily interchanged entities, the therapist ‘embraces’ the thinker, creating a space in which that person can allow his or her own pattern of thinking and planning to unfold and be observed. The emphasis is not on directly changing those thoughts or plans but on permitting them to be viewed against the wider background the client-therapist nexus provides. Under those circumstances, thoughts and plans change by themselves.” Jay Efran, Michael Lukens, & Robert Lukens wrote this on page 159 of their book Language Structure and Change: Frameworks of Meaning in Psychotherapy (1990).

"We rely upon the hope that analyst and patient together will become enmeshed in complicated reenactments of early, unformulated experiences with significant others that can shed light upon the patient’s current interpersonal and intrapsychic difficulties by reopening in the analytic relationship prematurely foreclosed areas of experience.” Jody Davies wrote this on page 156 of her article "Love In the Afternoon" in the journal Psychoanalytic Dialogues (1994).

Therapy means "Be true to your responsibilities, delay immediate gratification, and settle into a longer view." Richard Handler (2009), from p. 68 of "Bookmarks" in the magazinePsychotherapy Networker.

Therapy allows one to (a) be open to internal recollections, (b) practice attuned communication and contingent joining, (c) allow self-reflection and deepen self-understanding of leftover issues, (d) change emotionally disconnected patterns, and (e) resolve trauma and loss. This is paraphrased from pages 12-13 of Daniel J. Siegel's 2003 article, "Attachment and Self-Understanding: Parenting with the Brain in Mind," which can be found at <<www.attach.org/AttachmentandSelf- understanding1.pdf>>

“Patients seek the truth of their lives, new ways to explain themselves to themselves that will enliven them to their future ” (p. 237). Cathie Simpson (2005). Remembering Infancy, unpublished dissertation for Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA.

“Psychotherapy is about meaning—which, in the end, the human animal cannot live without. Psychotherapy is two flesh-and-blood, breathing, speaking, silent, smiling, frowning, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes yelling humans, present to each other." Michael Ventura wrote that in 2009 on page 64 of the article, "Screenworld," in the magazine Psychotherapy Networker.

The goal of therapy is not the restoration of the self, but the enrichment of the self, the person becoming more present, more defined, closer to an aware personality; that is, the self comes to approximate the personality. To put it somewhat aphoristically, the patient becomes what he or she really is, not what he or she should be, or would like to be. All neuroses are failures of presence, warts and all." Edgar Levenson wrote this in 1989 on page 550 of his article, "Whatever Happened to the Cat?: Interpersonal Perspectives on the Self," in the journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis.

In therapy, "one comes to witness and accept a range of subjective states without blame and with a certain playfulness or lightness of being. The usual outcome of this process is greater courage, insight, empathy, and creativity—means for uniting the opposites, as Jung would say.” Polly Young-Eisendrath said this on page 233 of The Cambridge Companion to Jung (1997).

Therapy is "restoring a patient to a previous level of functioning that has been compromised by a crisis." Glen Gabbard said this on pages 92-93 of his book,Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice(1994).

“Therapy thrives on breaking up patterns that are encouraged elsewhere. Therefore, it doesn’t go well if it consists of allowing the client to continue to do the two things he or she does best—complain and make New Year’s resolutions.” From page 76 of Jay Efran, Michael Lukens, and Robert Lukens' book, Language Structure and Change: Frameworks of Meaning in Psychotherapy (1990).

“Clients and therapists—or members of self-help groups—converse in ways that help people generate options they were unable to realize by themselves or in other settings.” Jay Efran, Michael Lukens, and Robert Lukens (1990), Language Structure and Change: Frameworks of Meaning in Psychotherapy, p. 60.

“In therapy, two or more individuals meet and form a novel coupling that enables them to carve out new distinctions. In the process, they breathe life into alternatives that had no previous existence. At its best, psychotherapy begins with a particular ‘glitch’ in a client’s life and moves toward redefining and expanding the possibilities of living. That’s what can make it an exciting and enriching endeavor for clients and therapists alike.” Jay Efran, Michael Lukens, and Robert Lukens (1990), Language Structure and Change: Frameworks of Meaning in Psychotherapy, p. 197.

“The task of treatment is to help the patient see what his assumptions are.” Michael Franz Basch (1980), Doing Psychotherapy, p. 36.

“If we look squarely at the fundamentals, it becomes apparent that therapy is neither science nor art—it’s conversation. Conversation is at once the most subtle and complex of all human activities, and our most important problem-solving tool.” Jay Efran, with Michael Lukens and Mitchell Greene, wrote this on page 54 of their article, "Defining Psychotherapy" (2007, March/April) inPsychotherapy Networker.

“This is the core of depth work: to listen to the forces inside us, to pay heed, and to acknowledge them so that we can prevent continuous suffering." This is on page 36 of Machiel Klerk's dissertation for clinical psychology,The Birth of Compassion and the Experience of the Divine, 2008. Pacifica Graduate Institute. See <<http://www.machielklerk.com>>

“What, then, is this wholeness that is the aim of psychological work? It is the fullest possible consciousness of all that comprises one’s own personality, and it is approached in the steady, honest, and demanding self-discipline that Jung calls the process of individuation. Since, as we have implied, whatever is unconscious within us is first encountered in projection, the process involves the withdrawal of projection and the assimilation of its content into that conscious being where it belongs—our own. It involves the ever-growing admission of who we really are,” said David L. Hart on page 92 of The Cambridge Companion to Jung (1997).

Therapy takes a “look at the BIG questions: Who am I? What is my purpose? Is my story yours? Is your story mine? Is it true? Is it real? What’s real anyway? And, what on earth is a Self on earth?” leeny sack, performance artist, Ithaca, NY.