Psychoanalysis: The Magic and The Lie Diary of a Five Day A Week Analysis by Esther Altshul Helfgott, Ph.D. |
This page was last updated on: January 27, 2007
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This material was published as a portion of a larger article entitled Diary of An analysis: Hermeneutically Yours/Musings/On the Dyad As Text, in The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review, vol. 3, no. 3, 1992. The journal is no longer publishing; but its editor, Dr Katalina Bartok was instrumental in creating a vibrant psychoanalytic forum that brought scholars, poets, intellectuals, analysands and analysts together in an endeavor to understand the psychoanalytic project more fully. Her publishing presence and her journal are sorely missed. EAH July 15, 2005 Fall 1991 - Hermeneutically Yours: Musings On the Dyad As Text ... Each psychoanalysis comprises a story; and the story begins with the first meeting. Perhaps before that. On the phone. Or before that. With the idea of the person who called. And the mind of the person receiving the call. A story is tale, narrative, form. It holds content and place. Its meaning depends on narration and interpretive line. So the people who meet inside the analysis, who comprise the tale, begin the story with themselves. Because relationship is story: it holds meaning. And voice. And space. For movement. And still/ness. And time. Our minds meet on the page. And, then, again, they don't meet. And do: for now. When the time comes, we will reach ourselves again. And know how to speak. And think. And gesture and gaze. The room is a page/the page is a room. In this particular therapy room neither page nor room is removed or absented from the other. The clinical and linguistic entwine. Psychoanalysis, then, becomes more of itself. Without one (the clinical), the other (the linguistic/academic) sees with half an eye. Interprets in darkness. We are each other's signifier. Symbol of the other's past. In relation to our own. Ours is a postmodern atmosphere (a room with a Couch in postmodern form?) where subject is agent rather than object. And two subjects exist. In a room. We are. Representations of our own lives. Falling against each other. Merging. Thought. And place. Without structured form. Inside structured form. In this room today, during this piece of chapter, we understand the meaning of today. Our differences have found solace in the other. We use them, and interpretation is clear. Today: this is what we know: we're happy. It's Wednesday, the best of the five days, usually. Monday can be a disaster. And Fridays aren't too hot either. The Monday before last I stormed out mad. We spent Tuesday laughing at how I stormed out mad Monday. It wasn't always like this, laughing after being mad. We had to pay our dues first, claw the air. It used to be tight in here. From the first, we were scared. That is part of the interpretation. Fear: our fear. Mutual fear. Of other. Of self in relation to other. Female other. Male other. That was a time - between us - when gender obfuscated meaning and core. And the female and male in each of us lay buried inside an idea of sleek modern lines of somebody else's story. Fourteen years of interpreting each other's silence, of breaking down the meaning of comment and gaze. Of side-stepping time. And returning to the first day of meeting. Which held all meaning of what went before. And after. In each of us. Interpretation began. With relationship. That is form and interpretation. Which is us. There are some Mondays, like the day before yesterday, when I like him in spite of Saturday and Sunday; and I go in and say, "I have so much to tell you, I can't possibly tell it all, and that makes me sad." So I tell what I can; and we speak and don't speak, and I leave the rest. In pages: writing tells its own story. With us, the boundary of the room extends to the page, and past. All language transforms truth anyway. Some days are more cerebral than others. By Thursday, I don't know who is who. We even look alike. He sneezes and I wipe my nose. Our socks match. When I take off my shoes, he wriggles his toes. So we talk shop. Deconstruct the therapeutic model of mother as good breast/bad breast object of desire. Mother and father are, instead, each of them, agents of construction and/or destruction and/or de-construction of child who has agency too. Inside the triadic configuration of mother/child/father/this group exists alongside of, or is superimposed upon, siblings - and extended others - relative to a sociological construct of world. Time's up. Relationship forms content and form. Which composes text. Which contains plot, angle, theme. Plan. Movement and hints of change. Relationship is more than story. Relationship is interpretation. Then it becomes story. We have been reading my journal entries from that first day. I unearthed them from beneath the pile of notebooks in my room, made copies to keep in this room. The copies belong to him. He brings out this month's stack of journal entries, places it alongside the earlier pages of text. Stare at/our eyes/are the same color. He finishes my sentence. I start his. Yesterday I wrote: The interpretation of that first moment (of meeting) alters as our interpretations of each other in subsequent moments (and decades) alter; but the story-line of the analysis - which is our relationship - progresses and takes meaning from that very first encounter. That was the beginning of substance between us. All that has followed has been built upon and around that initial interpretive moment. I think about giving him a hug today but decide not to.... copyright1992, 2005Esther Altshul Helfgott. All Rights Reserved. posted July 15, 2005 page revised July 31, 2005 |
