Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The analyst's active though silent witnessing of the patient's self-inquiry is presented as an essential aspect of the analytic process. Witnessing, though rooted in the analyst's empathy and holding, represents a more advanced development of those functions based on relational muturation from union to self-other differentiation. Self-definition and regard for otherness are seen as intrinsically unitary. Psychoanalytic witnessing is first illustrated and defined, then located as a derivative of negation in the unfolding of the analytic process, next considered in relation to current concerns for intersubjectivity, and finally linked to current shifts in philosophical thought.
Warren S. Poland (Tue,) studied this question.