[Authority and psychotherapy].

Abstract

After having described the differences between "authority" and "power", nowadays somewhat outdated, we show that in medicine the "authority" belongs to the physician and that the doctor's "power", always surrounded by a halo of magic, is desired by the patient. This situation is the same in psychotherapy during which the psychotherapist defines authoritatively, that is as the "author", the treatments setting whereas the patient desires on almighty therapist. The authority co-exists with power and the treatment consists in increasing the authority and even the patients power and reducing the therapists power. A few remarks on Freud's authority and on the power desired by the leaders of some psychotherapeutic schools introduce more subtle considerations on the dialectic power - authority during psychoanalytically inspired psychotherapies and group psychotherapies.