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.     

Our Moral Universe

The application of psychoanalysis to social issues began with Freud's late writing. Understanding of racial and religious prejudice offers a social science application of psychoanalysis, but also has important implications for clinical practice. This paper supports and illustrates Dorothy Holmes' contention that examination of race and ethnicity in clinical work are important even when these issues are not apparent in patients' manifest content. It describes resistance to these factors in psychoanalysis and society.     

Our Cosmic Insignificance

The universe that surrounds us is vast, and we are so very small. When we reflect on the vastness of the universe, our humdrum cosmic location, and the inevitable future demise of humanity, our lives can seem utterly insignificant. Many philosophers assume that such worries about our significance reflect a banal metaethical confusion. They dismiss the very idea of cosmic significance. This, I argue, is a mistake. Worries about cosmic insignificance do not express metaethical worries about objectivity or nihilism, and we can make good sense of the idea of cosmic significance and its absence. It is also possible to explain why the vastness of the universe can make us feel insignificant. This impression does turn out to be mistaken, but not for the reasons typically assumed. In fact, we might be of immense cosmic significance—though we cannot, at this point, tell whether this is the case.