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Prologue: Is This Analysis?

A funny thing happened on Richard’s way through middle age. He was gripped by a desperate and immobilizing dysphoria. An anguished cry for help arose inside him, a cry that was answered by an analyst, Mel, who made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. That was the beginning of felicitous partnership that would change our lives. It would bring us rewards of inestimable value and opportunities for growth and renewal, long sought after yet inchoate until galvanized by a moving collaboration at once effortful and free flowing, earnest and enjoyable. Today, Richard has the uncanny experience of being at one and the same time a different person yet more his old true self than he has ever been. As his analysis progressed, he found himself feverishly writing, drawing, and photographing his experiences both inside and outside of treatment. He filled loose leaf notebooks, laptop files and tablet space. He wondered about many things, among them, “Is this analysis?” “What is essential to analysis?” and “How does it work?” With Mel’s encouragement, he embarked on the project of writing about his experience of his analysis. Mel responded with a complementary article about his experience, and Richard began soliciting colleagues to help us address these questions, using our material as a takeoff point. Thus, this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry was born. Now we have the honor and pleasure of sharing with you our stories, which are followed by thoughtful and heartfelt response articles contributed by a distinguished and creative group of analysts who have given generously of their time and energy.