Hmm, I'd say the typical, extortionate hourly billing rate, alone, is likely to put the shrink in that position.
>...I
>once knew a classically Freudian shrink who cried when a patient
>called to announce he was terminating.
Too little, too late. I assume those terminal sobs were preceded by years of the usual Herr Doktor hauteur, with the analyst each week peering blankly at the analysand for an hour over tented fingers.
>It's certainly not a peer
>relationship (though I once knew someone who went clothes shopping
>with her Lacanian-feminist analyst)
Gee, that sounds like a pretty puny foundation to build a multi-splendored, empathic relationship on. Even eHarmony.com finds that there are fully "29 Dimensions of Compatibility." And I'd hate to think that Dr. Neil Clark Warren offers the last word how just how multi-dimensional empathic relationships are.
>... but countertransference is
>inevitable ...
Inevitable but definitely not encouraged by the profession.
>... and the shrink has to analyze it along with the patient's
>transference.
So the patient picks up the tab for sorting out *two* sets of neuroses -- those of the patient and those of the doctor ;-)
Carl
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