The ability of psychoanalysis to alleviate psychic suffering rests on its unmatched technical power to facilitate the emergence of the full potential of human language in the service both of affectively integrated inner speech and of affectively meaningful interpersonal discourse.
Psychoanalysis is a talking cure, but one that alters the conditions of normal discourse.
The analyst does not participate in conversation, but rather listens in order to discover the obstacles to the patient s full acknowledgement of his thoughts and desires. A central factor in the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis is the communicative power of the analyst s voice that permits the integration of early affective experiences with secondary process understanding. Premature termination during the first year of analysis takes place in about one quarter of all accepted and commenced psychoanalytic control cases. Half of all those terminating prematurely drop out within the first three months. It is suggested that there may be important similarities within this earliest dropout group.