Psychoanalysis and negotiation

Somewhere between the image of psychoanalysis as suggestion and psychoanalysis as unearthing is that of analysis as negotiation. This is a picture of a mutual construction of reality by analyst and patient. Such an interaction allows for reciprocal input of the participants and a possible change in both. This paper sketches the role of negotiation throughout the entire process of treatment--from the initial rules, to the theory of the analyst, to the emergence of the transference, to the goal of the cure. The technique of psychoanalysis is said to lie in the process of negotiation.