One Effect of Being an Analysand

After being in analysis for years, I've experienced saying more and less than I intend. I've made slips, I've been arrogant, I've been overly deferential, so on and so forth. Even after several years of this, I'm still surprised when my unconscious reveals something.

This is funny because I had read a lot about psychoanalysis and how people say more and less than they mean to before going into analysis. I suppose that I thought knowing that I would say more and less than I intended would make it less shocking when it happened to me.

But when it happened, it still threw me. Nowadays, I'm less thrown when it happens, but not un-thrown. My unconscious can and does still remind me how unpredictable it is.

One of the effects of this is a propensity to shut up and pay more attention to the speech of other people more than I did before having the experience of being an analysand.