Article Title

The Usefulness of Neutrality

Authors

Julia Jones Zawatsky, MD, Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Towson Maryland

Abstract

Recently, the idea of therapeutic neutrality has been attacked. Many observers have suggested that the neutral therapist is inhuman and unempathic. Actually, being a neutral therapist means being especially human and empathic. The neutral therapist's empathic contact with the patient is the most extensive in that it includes not only contact with feelings and thoughts of which the patient is aware, but also contact with all those intolerable thoughts and feelings of which the patient prefers to be unaware. Such awareness in the therapist is possible only when the therapist remains, as Anna Freud (I) recommends, equidistant from the patient's id, ego and superego, that is equidistant from the forces generating the patient's psychic conflict. Such objectivity does not preclude warmth, rather it directly evolves from warm and authentic contact with the patient.

Recommended Citation

Zawatsky, MD, Julia Jones (1987) "The Usefulness of Neutrality," Jefferson Journal of Psychiatry: Vol. 5: Iss. 2, Article 5.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29046/JJP.005.2.002
Available at: https://jdc.jefferson.edu/jeffjpsychiatry/vol5/iss2/5