Theodore Jacobs, MD, 2018
/Dr. Jacobs’ work introduced the concept of enactment in psychoanalysis and illustrates its key role in the analytic process. Understanding and elucidating unconscious communications in analysis and, in particular, the effect of the analyst’s inner experience on patients’ communications and the analytic process is a key focus of his work. Dr. Jacobs has explored the many faces of countertransference, the role of non-verbal communication in treatment, and introduced the term “enactment” to describe the unconscious behaviors of patient and analyst whose understanding and interpretation is at the heart of analytic treatment. In the US, countertransference has typically been viewed as the analyst’s problem. It was not openly acknowledged or discussed until Dr. Jacobs lifted the surrounding curtain of silence. Dr. Jacobs is an author of books and papers, including The Possible Profession: The analytic process and the process of change, The Use of the Self: Contertransference and Communication in the Analytic Situation, and The Year of Durocher: A Novel.