ABSTRACT
We have seen that defi ning psychoanalytic therapy as a unique mode of inquiry into human experiencing goes beyond the engagement of who the patient is to the stimulation and facilitation of who the patient may be. With the breakdown of the confl ict/ arrest distinction, unrealized self potential becomes a central component of who the patient is, and, consequently, of the analytic process. While the analytic aim of bringing to fruition unrealized self potential is a logical outcome of the developmental arrest model, it implies a profoundly different view of the other than is found in conventional analytic thought. Theories as far removed from each other as ego psychology, the Kleinian school, and relational theory tend to see the other in terms of who she is now and how she became that person. There are some signifi cant exceptions, such as Loewald’s (1962b) suggestion that the future is an essential part of the analytic stance. However, Loewald’s view was limited to the superego; he did not recognize the embeddedness of the forward trajectory in all psychic events. The more signifi cant theoretical advance is Stern’s (1997) concept that analysis is about the articulation of the unformulated. Stern sees the analysand/other as suffering from states that have not been brought to fruition. For Stern, the analysand has unformulated states that may become articulated in the analytic process, and in this way Stern has provided a major step forward in the analytic conception of the other.
