Through the horoscope we get to know facets of the patient that would have eluded us had we only stuck with our analytic approach. We gain new distinctions that make us understand better the variety of ways life can be experienced. The importance to know our own horoscope should be obvious - it goes beyond of what we can get to know about ourselves in our training analysis. The comparison of our own chart with that of the client will make us aware of possible counter transferences that we otherwise would have overlooked and can give us a hint how we might misunderstand patients, burden them or frustrate them.
The engagement with our own horoscope is an ever new encounter with ourselves, comparable to the ‘unending analysis’ once the analytic process gets started. Thus the horoscope will give us one more way to gain an understanding of the client - not more and not less. The analyst, by foregoing this possibility, at the least misses out of an equally comprehensive and differentiated method for understanding the client.
Fritz Riemann, 'Lebenshilfe Astrologie', 1976 (trans. C.C.)
Fritz Riemann (1902-1979), at right, with Erich Fromm