God's Work,Our Hands

This essay offers a systematization of the various contributions to this issue, highlighting commonalities and creative tensions. Using Martin Luther's two‐kingdom theory as a framework, the leading question is the role of humanity in restoring creation and the deliberation that this ethical imperative—to carry out works of love on behalf of the neighbor (which includes creation itself)—might entail.     

Transformative Aspects of Our Own Analyses and Their Resonance in Our Work With Our Patients

As psychoanalysts, our own relational stories, our “wounds that must serve as tools” (Harris, 2009 Harris, A. April 2009. “Keynote address at the meeting of the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada.”. In You must remember this April,  [Google Scholar]), represent both our greatest liabilities and potential for change, at times facilitating and at times impeding our capacity to engage deeply in the analytic process. Transformative aspects of our personal analysis dwell, often unconsciously or preconsciously, in the analyst, generating unanticipated opportunities in our work with our patients. In this paper, the author describes how a profound piece of work in her own analysis around healing in her relationship with her young son resonated in her work with a long-term patient, enlivening and deepening the treatment. The author explores how she drew on the interpenetrating experiences of analyst, patient, mother, and child, helping her to deconstruct a complex enactment with her patient, and opening up potential space. In the process, her patient discovered new places within herself, which enabled her to reach out to her vulnerable teenage son in new and reparative ways.     

Choice,the Invisible Element in Our Work

Unless they use a highly structured approach, psychotherapists make choices all the time in their work, but the role of choice is neglected in the professional literature. Because choices tend to issue under the radar, sometimes as personal enactments, our profession could benefit from examining them. This is especially true for leaders of therapy groups where there are pressures to align with conventional perspectives of pathology, of popular “goodness” and “badness.” Two important influences on our decisions here are milieu—the historical period in which we work—and our clinical identity (training, personality, identifications and practical experience). It is to reinforce these that we often make our choices.     

Doing Our Work: Words,Deeds, and Presence

Group leadership is an art, with relational tools of words, deeds, and presence. We aim to take our groups to creative places that they—and we ourselves—have never been before. Something needs to happen, fresh experience needs to emerge that becomes relevant to the growth of the members, including the therapist. The therapist's work is done while we are also doing something else. It entails a dual focus, or “binocular vision,” directed to personal discovery, while also focused on the group’s realities and growth potentials. Three case examples illustrate how the work happens to us: we evolve as a person as we do the work.     

Luther's Challenge: The Power of Greed in Our Common Home

When faced with growing poverty, corrupt business practices, and the power of banking houses and lobbyists, Luther drew on his theological anthropology in order to discern the devastating power of greed in human relationships. And yet, as he admitted, greed was and is a clever master of human ambition, accepted by leaders in church, commerce, and government. His teaching on the power of greed was in continuity with the Christian tradition and yet broke new ground in his recognition that this vice possesses a social, institutional nature.     

Our Immigration and Human Rights Work Group in Action: Psychoanalysts Evaluating Asylum Seekers,Trauma and Family Devastation

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the story of a family of four refugees from Central America seeking asylum in the United States, and of the experience of a group of psychoanalysts, members of the New York University Postdoctoral Program Immigration and Human Rights Work Group, who evaluated each member of the family and wrote affidavits in support of their applications for asylum. The work described provides an example of how clinicians can apply their skills and understandings outside the consulting room to address the dire needs of refugees who have fled from their homes. We discuss the process of refugees seeking asylum and the role of a psychological evaluation in the asylum process. We elaborate on the content and process of the evaluations of each member of the family with a focus on the trauma suffered and its sequelae on two school-aged children, their adolescent aunt, and their courageous and protective mother. We also address the analysts’ experience of doing psychological evaluations and writing affidavits for asylum seekers who have experienced trauma.