In Honor of My Father and My Son

The author advises survivors on the four tasks of grief and reflects on the suicide of her college-age son in 1977 and the recent death of her father, a suicidologist, from age-related causes. She describes current collaborative efforts by organizations dedicated to the prevention and aftermath of suicide.     

My evangelical conviction

There are three things that may serve to disrupt the casual habits of intellect operative within a majority of studies that address American religion: (1) poesis must be practiced as a challenge to flat-footed analyses invested in common-sense literacy; (2) there must be an open and honest discussion of how scholars conceive of the characters they study and how they represent those subjects in print or other media; and (3) subtle attention must be paid to issues of discourse, that is, to issues of how people make themselves up even as they are made up by ideas, concepts, and words that have nothing essentially to do with them.     

My Psychoanalytic Journey

I am grateful to the editors of Psychoanalytic Inquiry for inviting me to participate in this retrospective issue on our collective psychoanalytic journeys. Life proceeds, both personally and professionally, in such a dense rush that this has provided a precious opportunity for me to take a longer view. Histories of persons, of nations, or of disciplines can be told in many different ways. The most compelling narrative of my own psychoanalytic history, from my current vantage point, is one with not too many surprises but with continuity and progressive deepening and enrichment.     

My Psychoanalytic Journey

In this article I describe the evolution of my psychoanalytic thought and my current perspective of psychoanalysis, after almost a half century of professional practice. For the most part, three ideas have guided this evolution: (1) considering the patient’s mind as the major source of knowledge; (2) my firm belief that the patient–analyst dialogue, taken from the Gadamerian point of view, is the best way to have access to the patient’s mind and also to that of the analyst himself; and (3) the notion that the mind constitutes an open, dynamic, and nonlinear system in constant interaction with the environment that surrounds it. In my writings, I have tried to show that the therapeutic action in the psychoanalytic process is formed by the therapist–patient interaction. I also propose that psychoanalysis must endeavor to be a social therapy, even as it treats individuals, and go beyond what is purely instinctual so as to emphasize what is particular to human beings and sets us apart from the other animal species.     

父亲的懊悔

当我们一家人谈论起迷信在农村依然很有市场时,父亲深有感触地说迷信会误事,并讲述了1992年发生的一件事儿。乘着改革的春风,许多人都发财致富了。我家隔壁以贩卖布匹、毛线等为业,经过几年的艰辛劳作,日子过得非常富有。我家也寻找机会致富,最后决定盖新式猪圈养猪。父亲依据书上的照片和介绍,自己设计猪圈的图纸,因此他总是睡得很晚。有一天夜里,他忽然看到外面一道亮光,好像闪电,就赶忙起身准备防雨。结果走到外面,发现竟是满天的星星,丝毫没有要下雨的迹象,他就回屋了。第二天、第三天还是这样。接连三天父亲都没发现什么,他很纳闷。第…