The Psychoanalyst in the Session: From Lived Experience and Involvement to Influence on the Analysand

This is a revised English version of the original work.The present version includes linguistic refinement and conceptual clarification in order to more accurately convey the original Greek text in academic English. This article approaches the psychoanalytic session as a living field where two psyches meet, and where theory and technique acquire real meaning only through the analyst’s immediate lived experience. Its central axis is the "Narcissistic Spectrum of Positions," a dynamic system in which diagnostic categories are transformed from static labels into fluid patterns of organizing experience; these shift during the session depending on the intensity and the threats faced by the psyche. The analyst is not a detached observer but an active participant who first senses the patient's projections bodily and psychically, and subsequently, through the observing ego, processes this involvement to return it to the relationship as thought. Particular emphasis is placed on the function of error and reparation, as the therapist's ability to recognize their own failures and restore the connection constitutes the core of therapeutic change, teaching the analysand that relationships can withstand ruptures. This journey aims to strengthen the healthy depressive position, where the subject acquires the ability to accept imperfection, loss, and guilt, while simultaneously maintaining coherence and the capacity for meaningful connection with the other. Ultimately, the asymmetry of the psychoanalytic relationship is redefined not as an asymmetry of power, but as an asymmetry of responsibility, where the analyst bears the burden of maintaining the frame and transforming lived experience into a transformative influence. Latest version recommended for citation.