Lost in Transference: A Psychoanalytic Journey Published Weekly
You may have questions about why I chose this kind of therapy, what made this the right moment, and why I'm sharing it in this public way. Any answers I have will be found as I write.*
I'm a storyteller at heart, creating worlds in fiction and art. You know how in a story you have a beginning, middle, and end? And the plot winds its way through conflict and resolution? And the end answers important questions?
Well, none of that will happen here. That's my other profile.
About These Essays
David is a psychotherapist who is also a candidate at a psychoanalytic institute in the U.S. We meet in person three times each week, and I'm getting used to the couch. I’m also in a graduate program studying psychoanalysis and culture.
I’m a transgressive writer who gleefully develops coercive challenges for the reader. My essays may have a similar sensibility. They’re unflinching, with no redemptive arc. But that's like all my writing, which pursues jouissance.
My childhood was filled with mental illness, violence, sexual abuse, and brilliance. The visceral details from my experiences aren't the metaphors of a conventional narrative. They're my metonymic associations, and I imagine one day, they'll simply stop.
You're here to make your own associations from my fragmented narrative. But really, that's the story of every story.
About Psychoanalysis
I like complexity, uncertainty, and possibility. This is why I embrace psychoanalysis. This is where I can create a future. A psychologist objectifies the patient to produce knowledge and starts from a position of "this fits somewhere." A psychoanalyst is a reader of a story and approaches a patient as "this is unknown."
Analysis embraces transference and explores the unconscious. Dreams and free association are foundational. If you're a reader with some knowledge of the various flavors of psychoanalysis, you may wonder what you'll taste here.
David’s training considers various frameworks, such as object relations, self-psychology, and relational theories. I have the sense that he moves well within the relational framework… but that may just be transference because I’m drawn to the co-creative experience of the relational turn.
David’s approach feels structured and nuanced, sharp but not simplistic, emotionally charged but calmly introspective. He has a doctorate and a decade working, so he’s obviously practical and driven. But he wandered over to psychoanalysis, where he’s now been for years, which suggests he’s committed to subjectivity and profoundly curious. These are my impressions, because, as you might expect, he answers most of my questions with questions.
While my writing could reflect an attempt to control the narrative, the question becomes whether my engagement serves as a substitute for analytic discovery or if it's a complementary process. People have asked me if knowing so much about analysis affects the process. I think it helps a lot. But you'll have to ask David what he thinks.
* To the extent that we define knowing as our capacity to think intentionally about something, we literally do not know whatever meanings we cannot say. - Donnel Stern in Unformulated Experience
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The photo above is my family in 1973. My mother Amanda, oldest sister Cathy, and father Spike are in the back row. My twin sister Tammy, me Terry, and my brother Justin are in the front.
The profile avatar shows my twin sister on the left and me on the right in 1967.
