Modes of Therapeutic Action

How do we position ourselves in relation to our patients? Do we participate as neutral object, as empathetic self-object, or as authentic subject? Do we strive to enhance the patient's knowledge, to provide a corrective experience, or to work at the intimate edge?


About the Author
Martha Stark, M.D., a graduate of the Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst in private practice in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Dr. Stark is on the faculty of both the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is also a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, has a teaching appointment at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and is on the faculty of the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at the Massachusetts General Hospital.