This rigidity continued until the time of Kohut, when a shift occurred, and analysts began taking patients more seriously. A reliance on cautiousness and on rules was started by Freud with his admonitions to analysts. Although Freud trusted himself to be spontaneous, and could feed the Rat Man when he was hungry and organize financial support for the Wolf Man when he was destitute, he did not trust his students nor did he write down guidelines for being spontaneous or using intuition. So in the beginning, Freud determined what was proper analysis and what was not. His death left us without an authority, and defining proper analysis now causes controversy, confusion and anxiety.
Many teachers play it safe and teach rules rather than what they do in their own practices.
He will modify his approach so that he can get as good as possible a working analytic situation developing. Sandler is saying that analysts are pleased with their work but are reluctant to share what they do with colleagues and students because their intuitive creativity will be criticized. I was taught to suspect a patient's motives, which left me feeling burdened. Self psychology, by teaching me the value of trusting patients' motivations and of seeing things first from their perspectives, has freed me from much of that burden. A common misunderstanding of self psychology is that understanding someone's experience means you agree with it or condone it, but I have learned that understanding a patient's experience does not mean I have to give up my point of view.