Jean I couldn't agree with you more. I am starting to get my book of therapeutic failures together. The failures are all going to be mine as I feel it would be somewhat dishonest to focus on others failures while appearing to be acting, at all times, highly appropriately.
Patients can be odd when it comes to criticising their analysts.
I fairly recently brought up with an ex patient the time when I said to him 'Fuck off out of my face you turd and go and play on a fucking motorway' The ex patient said that it was exactly what he needed at the time. I had remonstrated with myself for several years about this outburst, but the ex patient considered it as some sort of breakthrough. Best Gerald Dear Gerald, I like your book idea a lot, though I would include my analysts' failures as well as my own as an analyst, but only if I let them in on my plans which would involve many discussions. This is something that hasn't been discussed enough by the actual people involved, only posthumously or anonymously, which is indirect. I recommend this type of discussion except when it is used by an analyst to gratify some unconscious masochism.