Mothers and Their Little Girls with Ilene Lefcourt (New York)

"In addition to the easy convenience of bathing two children together, or three children together, there are other motivations of bathing them together. Parents are less aware that there is an excitement in seeing the children naked - although convenience is what's stated first, I think other things do go into it. Through development reactions to the genital difference and nudity will change, and I believe that being aware of those changes is very useful for parents to make decisions about what they want to do in their family, about family nudity, toileting, bathing, running around naked."    Episode Description: Ilene demonstrates the many influences on mothers' engagements with their daughters which include their own remembered and forgotten pasts, cultural influences and their unique imaginations. She mentions the startling messaging in the famous movie "Gigi", "Thank heaven for little girls...so helpless and appealing, without them what would little boys do." We discuss the power of girls wishing to be like their mothers and how that at times conflicts with their wishes to also individuate from their mothers. The book demonstrates differences among new parents around the blue/pink choices for boys and girls, and she also discusses the many feelings parents have associated with family nudity. A special distinction is made between a three-year-old asking 'Do I look pretty?' vs 'Am I pretty' - each having very different meanings to the child and to her parents. We touch upon 'whining', self-stimulation, and what being a 'girly-girl' means to parents. We close with Ilene sharing with us how real her granddaughters found this work to be.   Our Guest: Ilene Lefcourt established the Sackler Lefcourt Center for Child Development in 1982. She was the Director, led the Mother-Baby-Toddler Groups, and provided Developmental Consultation to parents for over 35 years. She taught Child Psychiatry Residents and Parent-Infant Psychotherapy Trainees about her work. She has been a faculty member at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research since 1995. Ms. Lefcourt is currently in private practice in New York City. She is the author of  Parenting and Childhood Memories: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Reverberating Ghosts and Magic, Mother-Baby-Toddler Group Guide: A Psychodynamic Approach, When Mothers Talk: Magical Moments and Everyday Challenges, and Mothers and Daughters: The First Three Years. Visit Ilene's website: http://ilenelefcourt.com/.  Recommended Readings: 1975, Fraiberg S. Adelson E., Shapiro V., Ghosts in the Nursery, Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14, 387-421   1993, Lieberman, A ., The Emotional Life of the Toddler, Simon and Schuster    2005, Lieberman, A., Angels in The Nursery, Infant Mental Health Journal. Vol. 26(6)   1995, Stern, D. The Motherhood Constellation, Basic Books

"All my writing before this has been poetry, and over the years in my books of poems I found the lines kept getting longer. I think the move towards prose had me working on this journal form, which I've not done. Many people write their journals their entire lives. For me, it's a more dipping in and out of this form of work. I began this segment when my father-in-law was dying, and it began as a small series of prose poems about his decline. What I found myself wanting to do then is weave in stories from work, how they were intersecting with what was going on at home. And the thought that all analysts, all therapists, live in this zone of interwoven stories where we're following multiple narrative threads at once, but we tend to talk to each other in terms of one case story at a time. So it was important to me to have all those levels present, because that's really what a lived life is, is being immersed simultaneously and in all of those."     Episode Description: Alice's 'meditative memoir' invites us into the multiple narratives in analysts' lives both within and outside of their offices. She shares how we inevitably bring our own experiences into each clinical hour which forms part of the musicality of the work. Her attention remains on the inside/outside aspects of the body, the mind and our world views. Mortality is never far from her awareness and is reflected in the work she engages in with her patients. She introduces 'Blake' to us and how after 12 years of vital work together, he dies quite prematurely. We discuss the intimate nature of analytic work and how it becomes part of our own inner life. Alice shares a saying of her at times 'directionally challenged' grandfather, "We are headed in the proper general direction" - a theme applicable to many venues of life and psychoanalysis. We close with her reading a poem of Galway Kinnell which concludes with "The still undanced cadence of vanishing"   Our Guest: Alice Jones, MD is a personal and consulting analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. She is the author of seven collections of poems and Cadence of Vanishing, a memoir. A collection of essays titled Poetry, Depth, and Endings in Psychoanalysis: Distant Music is forthcoming from Routledge in 2026.     Recommended Readings:  Alice Jones. (2025) Ever Ending. Psychoanalytic Quarterly. 94:3. 497-517.   Alice Jones (2020) Vault. Apogee Press.   Alice Jones (2025) Leavings. TAP Magazine.    Thomas Ogden (2025) Inventing Psychoanalysis with Each Patient. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 106:3, pp 471-488.   Ellen Pinsky (2025) Driven to Write: 45 Writers on the Motives and Mysteries of their Craft. Routledge.  

"This came from an experience with a patient. It was early in my analytic training, and I was working with a supervisor who I really admired, and worked with her for a number of years. She was post-Kleinian, and was great at interpretation, formulation, and she was really helpful with just starting to guide me towards a lot of this work. I remember describing to her a patient session, and I was going through my process notes, and I said, 'I feel like the patient is inside of me. I feel like they want something that's in me, and I don't know what it is, and I can't quite access my own self, I don't know what to do'. It was through this initial experience where I really felt why analytic training versus other less intense training, we were also right at the time doing infant development, offered so much. It was early in my training and she suggested I think about an infant or even a toddler when they want something from their parents - they want something from their mother. The mother kind of feels this kind of gripping or this yearning from them, the baby wanting something. I started to think of my patients, not as infants or babies, but that what I was feeling was that there was something that the person I was working with needed, and they didn't have words yet to tell me what that was."    Episode Description: We begin by recognizing the unique journeys that lead clinicians to become psychoanalysts. Pam shares with us her initial exposure to dynamic thinking but felt that she was missing some awareness of what was happening in herself and in the patients she was working with - "I was curious...I wanted to go deeper, to know more." This led her to enroll in full-time analytic training. She shares with us her understanding of the 'difficult to reach patients' that she was treating and presents a fictionized case that represents the many countertransference struggles she faced. She noted that "instead of the patient realizing that she wanted something from me, she instead felt attacked by me." Supervision was essential in helping her make sense of her experiences and of learning to 'listen to the music'. We close by noting her open-ended curiosity and interest in learning more - lifelong attributes of analysts who continue to take pleasure in our work.   Our Guest: Pamela Polizzi, LCSW maintains a full-time private practice in New York City. She specializes in working with patients struggling with eating disorders, complex personality struggles, anxiety, depression, relational trauma, and life transitions. She earned her Master of Social Work (MSW) in Advanced Standing Clinical Practice from Fordham University at Lincoln Center in 2011. Currently, she is an Advanced Candidate at the Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the Contemporary Freudian Society (CFS) in Manhattan, working toward becoming a psychoanalyst. She completed a 2015 Two-Year Advanced Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Certificate in the Integrated Treatment of Eating Disorders from the Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy (ICP), Center for the Study of Anorexia and Bulimia (CSAB). She also completed the Contemporary Freudian Society's (CFS) Two-Year Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program in 2019.  Recommended Readings: Readings for Psychoanalytic Candidates:  Bach, S. (2011). The How-To Book For Students of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Karnac.   Busch, F. (2021). Dear Candidates: Analysts From Around The World Offer Personal Reflections on Psychoanalytic Training, Education, and The Profession. Routledge.    Readings on Clinical Practice with the Patient who is Difficult to Reach:   Bollas, C. (1996). Borderline Desire. Int. Forum Psychoanal., (5)(1):5-9.   Joseph. B., Feldman, M., & Spillius, M. (1989). Psychic Equilibrium and Psychic Change: Selected Papers of Betty Joseph. New Lib. of Psycho-Anal., (9):1-222. (on Pep-web).  Joseph, B. (1975) The patient who is difficult to reach.  Joseph, B. (1982) Addiction to near-death.  Joseph, B. (1983) On understanding and not understanding: some technical issues.  Riesenberg-Malcolm, R. (1999). On Bearing Unbearable States of Mind. Routledge.    Steiner, J. (1993). Psychic Retreats: Pathological Organizations in Psychotic, Neurotic and Psychotic Patients. Routledge.    Winnicott, D.W. (1974). Fear of Breakdown. Int. R. of Psycho-Analysis. 1: 103-107.

"[A couple state of mind] is the capacity to be subjectively involved with both individuals, but then importantly, to be able to step back, find a third position, and try to understand what the couple are creating together. Although it's kind of obvious in a way, because surely, that's what a couple therapist is doing, they're trying to understand the couple relationship. It can have quite a powerful effect on the couple coming for help, because very often they're coming with a different state of mind. They're coming with a state of mind where the other one is felt to be the problem. Quite often, one partner feels brought by the other for treatment, and it's very much a kind of two-person interaction - 'You know, if you weren't this way or if you did this for me, then I would be happy'. What perhaps the couples don't  have is the capacity themselves to step back and observe what they're creating together - that's the couple state of mind. The couple state of mind is initially in the therapist. It's the couple therapist's analytic stance, if you like. But what I'm suggesting is that over time, this gets identified with and internalized by the couple into their relationship."    Episode Description: We begin by describing the nature of the 'couple state of mind' as it exists in the mind of the therapist and as it grows in the couple allowing them to reflect on their 'coupleness'. We consider the similarities and differences between this and the familiar analytic self-reflective capacities that develop in intensive individual treatment. Mary presents clinical examples of her countertransference inclinations that are evoked in working with those who are initially 'likable' or 'unpleasant', i.e., "I can't understand why they're together" and how that evolves into a deeper understanding of the nature of their 'togetherness'. She discusses fixed unconscious fantasies and projective identifications that are both defensive and creative. We also discuss how "curiosity is the opposite of narcissism" and how that vital ability lives in the therapist and in the couple. We close with recognizing that the couple's capacity for their own 'couple state of mind' is an indication of readiness for termination.   Our Guest: Mary Morgan, is a Psychoanalyst, Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, and a writer. She is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Senior Fellow of Tavistock Relationships and Honorary Member of the Polish Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is a consultant member of the International Psychoanalytic Association's Committee on Couple and Family Psychoanalysis, a member of the Editorial board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and a member of the International Advisory Board of the journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis. She worked for many years at Tavistock Relationships, London, where she was the Reader in Couple Psychoanalysis and Head of the MA and Professional Doctorate in Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She currently has a private practice of individuals, couples, supervision, and teaching. Along with Andrew Balfour and Christopher Vincent in 2012, she co-edited How Couple Relationships Shape Our World: Clinical Practice, Research and Policy Perspectives. Her book A Couple State of Mind: Psychoanalysis of Couples – the Tavistock Relationships Model (2019) is available in several languages. Her latest book Couple Relations: A Contemporary Introduction was published in 2025 and is available as an audiobook. Recommended Readings: Morgan, M. (2019) A couple state of mind: psychoanalysis of couples and the Tavistock Relationships Model. London & New York: Routledge.   Morgan, M. (2025) Couple Relations: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge.   Ruszczynski, S. & Fisher, J. V. (Eds.) (1995). Intrusiveness and Intimacy in the Couple. London: Karnac.   Fisher, J. (1999). The Uninvited Guest. Emerging from Narcissism towards Marriage. London: Karnac.   Grier, F. (Ed.) (2005a). Oedipus and the Couple. London: Karnac.   Morgan, M. (2019) Love, Hate, and Otherness in Intimate Relating. Couple and Family Psychoanalysis 9:15-21   Clulow, C. (2009) (Ed) Sex, Attachment and Couple Psychotherapy: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (pp. 75–101). London: Karnac.  

"To come back to this idea of 'groaning' - I really like it because I think it's a good description of the work we do, but particularly because it refers to Antonio Ferro's concept of the absorbency of the frame, which I think is another way of referring to it, that the frame can take a little give and take, that there's something organic about it. It has a structure, but it's absorbent, it can move, it's alive. So that is a very important concept. I think a lot of younger analysts or psychotherapists who want to be inspired by psychoanalysis don't let themselves feel comfortable letting things happen first before they try and immediately intervene and feel that they have to have some kind of magical response to it."    Episode Description: We begin by unpacking the meanings contained in the metaphor of the 'groaning' analytic frame. Allannah speaks of flexibility, containment and "the expectation of misunderstanding." She shares the importance of the analyst having a sense of an internal frame which is then introduced to the patient and which contrasts with their assumptions of social relatedness - "Too much comfort in the relationship can lead to a pseudo-analysis." We take up the concept of the 'co-created' frame and touch upon the reflections of Aulagnier, Rothstein and Aisenstein. Allannah shares her thinking on the issue of charging for missed sessions and describes her reconsideration of her personal analytic experience with this. We close with a comment on the analyst's internal frame which enables them to "hear the patient in an out-of-the-ordinary way."   Our Guest: Allannah Furlong, Ph.D., a psychologist and psychoanalyst, is a member of the Société psychanalytique de Montréal. After serving on the IPA North American Editorial Committee, she was one of the original members of the IPA Committee on Confidentiality and organizers of the first interdisciplinary Inter-Regional Conference on Confidentiality. These collaborations led to the co-editorship of two books on issues of confidentiality in psychoanalysis. In addition, Dr. Furlong has written on the frame, missed sessions, informed consent in psychoanalysis, and the use of clinical material for teaching or publication. She has also written about the temporality of lovesickness, unconscious choice, and dehumanization as a shield against helpless openness to the other, for which she received the JAPA Prize for excellence in psychoanalytic scholarship. Her current research is on the subject-creating function of baby talk. Recommended Readings: M., Baranger, W., & Mom, J. 1983. Process and Non-Process in Analytic Work. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 64:1–15.   Bass, A. 2007a. When the Frame doesn't Fit the Picture. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 17:1–27.   Bleger, J. 1967. Psycho-analysis of the psychoanalytic frame. In Symbiosis and ambiguity: a psychoanalytic study, 1–13, trans. S. Rogers and edited by J. Churcher & L. Bleger. London: Routledge, 2013.    Caper, R. 1992. Does Psychoanalysis Heal? A Contribution to the Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 73:283–292.   Donnet, J.-L. 2001. From the Fundamental Rule to the Analysing Situation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 82:129–140.    Ogden, T. H. 1992. Comments on Transference and Countertransference in the Initial Analytic Meeting. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 12:225–247.   Roussillon, R. 2015. An Introduction to the Work on Primary Symbolization. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 96:583–594.   Stern, S. 2009. Session Frequency and the Definition of Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 19:639–655

"A saturated state is a state in which the conceptual or emotional object has absolute value, it is already stacked or closed to new meanings and therefore cannot undergo any kind of transformation. An unsaturated state, on the other hand, is a state in which the emotional or conceptual object is in an open state in which it is still open to transformation, to new meanings, to all kinds of change. What I think is interesting and important is to understand that one of the most difficult aims of working with traumatic objects is linked to this transformation from saturated to unsaturated states. Traumatic objects become fixed in a saturated state, which does not allow them to undergo any transformation within the psyche or within the therapeutic analytic process. The saturated state of traumatic events or objects is a frozen state in which therapy or analysis is used to preserve rather than intervene. This creates, in quite a few cases, a situation that I call false therapy or false analysis - a process, a therapeutic process in which very detailed materials are ostensibly presented, but in fact they are presented in a way that forces the therapist or  to either swallow them as they are, or vomit them up but not digest them because they are presented in a way that does not tolerate any intervention, any other point of view, any creation of movement within the given frozen narrative."   Episode Description: We begin with describing the difference between 'saturated' and 'unsaturated' memories - those that are frozen and without the freedom to reflect from those that contain the capacity to create new meaning. Dana emphasizes the importance of not simply collecting the particulars of a trauma, the 'notes', as much as attending to the nature of its delivery, the 'music' - "the way they tell the story." She presents a case involving 'parasitic language' where imitation of the other is at the level of fetishistic attachment lacking a voice of their own. In her countertransference she noted "I search for you - all I find is myself." We consider how this pseudo-relating induces a peculiar sense of closeness that ultimately contributes to a sense of claustrophobia in the analyst. She shares with us her personal story and reflects "Being a psychoanalyst doesn't mean giving up being a musician." Dana concludes with reading her final paragraph on 'forgiveness.'   Our Guest: Dana Amir, PhD., is a clinical psychologist, supervising and training analyst at the Israel Psychoanalytic Society, full professor, and head of the interdisciplinary doctoral program in psychoanalysis at the Zramim Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Program at Haifa University, poetess and literature researcher. She is the author of seven poetry books, four memoirs in prose, and five psychoanalytic books published by Routledge. She was awarded literary as well as academic prizes, including seven international psychoanalytic awards, including the prestigious Sigourney Award (2025).   Recommended Readings: Amir, D. (2012). The Inner Witness. The International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 93:879–896. Amir, D. (2013). The Chameleon Language of Perversion. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 23: 393-407.   Amir, D. (2016). The Metaphoric, the Metonymic and the Psychotic aspects of Obsessive-Sympomatology. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 97, 259–280.  Amir, D. (2016). Hermetic Narratives and False Analysis: A Unique Variant of the Mechanism of Identification with the Aggressor. Psychoanalytic Review 103(4):539-54 Amir, D. (2023). "From Turning Away to Turning Toward: Adoption as Radical Hospitality". Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 21: 1–18. Amir, D. (2024). From mind-deadness to mindedness, from collaboration to cooperation. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 21(4).

"This patient taught me a lot. The context was that I just finished my second training as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and I felt I needed to prove a lot, and I clearly arrived with the wrong agenda. It was that if I was good enough and smart enough, a clever enough just graduated psychodynamic psychotherapist, I would manage to get into why the patient is struggling so much with the realization of his mother's cancer. That is a resistance, he didn't want to touch the topic at all. I thought that if I uncover the underlying reason why the cancer of his mother was so extremely distressing, and be able to explore with him how he's processing this, I would be helping him. I was extremely wrong. The patient was really generous with me. What I meant is he was forgiving. He clearly was tolerating me trying to push for something he really had no appetite for." "Psychoanalysis is not only about clever interpretations. Psychoanalysis can be about the tools to help us feel what we are experiencing. And in those radical settings, you become almost the object you are projected to be and you need a frame of mind to ground you that you are not that and can offer something different. So that is why I thought it was really useful."  Episode Description: We begin with a description of the distinction between supportive and exploratory psychotherapy. Rodrigo presents clinical examples of individuals who were in crises and their capacity to be aware of their inner experiences was not available to them,  hence supporting their defenses was vital. In addition, "being with them" became a key aspect of the therapeutic benefit they gained. We consider patients who are phobic about intimacy and have backgrounds where trusting others proved to be actually dangerous. He also spoke of therapists who unknowingly privilege their own need to feel like an interpretive healer in the face of their patients' more immediate need to be listened to. Rodrigo alerts us to the risks of colluding with patients' binary view of the world and recommends helping them recognize that "the therapist may not always be on their side or share their perspective" - this is the creative challenge of supportive work. We close with his sharing with us his personal journey and his appreciation that psychoanalysis can be meaningful as well in settings 'off the couch'.   Our Guest: Rodrigo Sanchez Escandón Trained as a Clinical Psychologist in Mexico City and completed his Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training at the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association before moving to London to undertake further psychoanalytic training at the British Psychoanalytic Association (BPA). He is currently the BPA's Director of Curriculum Subcommittee. He is also the Course Lead for Adult Psychotherapies at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, overseeing programmes in London and the North of England. He previously lectured in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at Essex University, where he continues to supervise PhD students and pursue research. For seven years, Rodrigo worked extensively with individuals experiencing homelessness and complex needs, integrating psychoanalytic approaches into multidisciplinary care. He now maintains a private practice in Leeds, alongside his teaching and leadership roles.   Recommended Readings:   Winston, A., Rosenthal, R. N., & Roberts, L. W. (2020). Evolution of the concept of supportive psychotherapy. In Learning supportive psychotherapy: An illustrated guide (pp. xx–xx). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.   Winston, A., Rosenthal, R. N., & Roberts, L. W. (2020). General framework of supportive psychotherapy. In Learning supportive psychotherapy: An illustrated guide (pp. xx–xx). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.   Hellerstein, D. J., Rosenthal, R. N., Pinsker, H., & Klee, S. (1994). Supportive therapy as the treatment model of choice. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 48(1), 80–93.   Sanchez Escandon, R. (2025). Introduction to the fundamentals of supportive therapy. In Contemporary developments in supportive therapy: Principles and Practice. Palgrave.   Sanchez Escandon, R. (2025). Active and passive use of the transference. Contemporary developments in supportive therapy: Principles and practice. Palgrave.    

"We bring our patterns with us wherever we go, into every relationship, and we necessarily and inevitably bring them into the therapy relationship or the psychoanalytic relationship, because that's a relationship too. It's not a matter of choice. It simply happens. It happens everywhere. The therapist doesn't do anything to make it happen. This is the human condition. We bring our patterns. The thing that makes psychotherapy, psychotherapy, and not just another relationship, is that we do something different. What we do that's different is, instead of just repeating our same old patterns with a new person, we create the conditions where it becomes possible to notice the patterns, to recognize them, to put words to them, and understand them and discuss them. Out of that experience and that understanding comes the freedom to do things differently, to not have to repeat the same patterns. I always make a point, is that true for everyone? Does everybody need therapy? Well, everybody repeats earlier characteristic patterns. For some people, those patterns allow you to live a satisfying and rewarding life, with pleasure and connection and meaning and intimacy. So if that's the case, you're still repeating early patterns, but that's what it means to be human. However,  some people are living out patterns that cause distress or limitation, that get in the way of living the life they could lead, and that's what we work with in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis." Episode Description: We begin our conversation on the importance of communicating our basic concepts in jargon-free language. Jonathan shares with us the limitations he finds in academic psychology, where analytic ideas are meaningfully misunderstood. We work our way through his paper discussing 'unconscious mental life', the 'mind in conflict', 'disavowal' (instead of 'repression') and 'psychic continuity' (instead of 'psychic determinism') to name but a few of the topics we cover. We recognize the analytic opportunity to discover the ways that we live in the childhood 'then' as opposed to the novel 'now'. Jonathan presents clinical material to demonstrate these concepts, including his own 'disavowal' as he began his analysis. We close with an appreciation of the importance of one's own affective discovery of these otherwise unconscious forces. I also note Jonathan's passion and clarity about our work.   Our Guest: Jonathan Shedler, PhD is an author, consultant, and teacher. His article The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy helped establish psychoanalytic therapy as an evidence-based treatment. He's the author of over 100 scholarly articles, creator of the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP) for personality diagnosis and case formulation, and co-author of the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF and a Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Follow Jonathan at: https://jonathanshedler.substack.com/.   Recommended Readings: Schopenhauer's Porcupines by Deborah Luepnitz offers a series of case studies that read like short stories. They will give you a "feel" for what goes on in the clinical consulting room & in the mind of the clinician.   Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: A Practitioner's Guide by Nancy McWilliams offers a readable introduction to psychodynamic concepts and thinking.    Freud and Man's Soul by Bruno Bettelheim offers real insight into the origins of psychoanalytic theory and how and why it is personally relevant to everyone.    Therapeutic Communication by Paul Wachtel offers answers to the perennial clinician question, "What do I say and how do I say it?"   Long-term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy by Glen Gabbard is the closest thing to a comprehensive course in doing psychodynamic therapy.  Introduction to the Practice of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy by Alessandra Lema   That Was Then, This Is Now: An Introduction to Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapy by Jonathan Shedler, PhD

"The similarity between Freud and Kohelet [Ecclesiastes] is that both of them believe that there's no overarching totalistic system that  integrates all the disparate experiences that one has. You have that, Freud says, in psychotics, and you have that in philosophers, and you have that in devout people -  they look for systematicity. They try to cram everything into a framework of meaning. Both Freud and Kohelet reject that. They don't have a worldview in that way. However, in order to flourish, you do need a meaning-giving, affect-integrating and action-guiding set of considerations. You can't just be out there like a windowless monad floating around. There are some core beliefs and values that anchor a person, that give them footing. So there's a difference between a totalizing worldview and a workable framework that's open to critique."  Episode Description: We begin with a brief reading from On Transience and Ecclesiastes and consider how they both belong to 'Wisdom Literature' while separated by over 2000 years. Paul points out that while Freud works from a linear sense of time, Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) is drawn to the cycles of nature and human experience. He provides clinical examples that he feels are enriched by considering the teachings of Ecclesiastes which are very similar to the psychoanalytic way of thinking - "one must learn to live with what cannot be altered," the importance of the "downsizing of infantile narcissism," and  recognizing that "pleasure and joy are palpable, sensual and concrete experiences." We discuss the importance of an object-related life that includes forgiveness and gratitude as well as "embracing resignation without despair." We conclude with the deeply moving time poem "To every thing there is a season/ and a time to every purpose under heaven..."   Our Guest: Paul Marcus, PhD is a training and supervising analyst at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis in New York and Co-chair of the discussion group Psychoanalysis and Spirituality in the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is the author/editor of 25 books including The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck: Psychoanalysis and Religion. He is the editor of Psychoanalytic Review.   Recommended Readings: Seow, C.L. 1997, Ecclesiastes: A New Translation. New Haven: Yale University Press   Fox, M. V., 2004, Ecclesiastes, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society   Heim, K.M., 2019, Ecclesiastes, Downers Grove: IVP Academic   

"With Kristi [second analyst], it was much, much deeper. This whole dependent and infantile part of me was coming out. This is psychoanalytic language - I was moving into a regression that was terrifying, because I had been trained by my mother, and it was my nature, and it was what had worked for me to really approach things as an 'independent person' ie I don't need anybody; I don't need anything; I can function whatever happens. While I explored a little bit of that with Lane [first analyst], it was only very slight, and we never talked about it. With Kristi, she would actually make me aware of it, and I would become aware of my own need for her and withdraw. With Kristi, it was immediate that I knew there was much greater complexity going on, a level of complexity that I couldn't have handled in my 20s. And we locked horns almost immediately." Episode Description: We begin with describing the various psychotherapy journeys that individuals undergo in search of healing. In her memoir, Joan describes two intense yet fundamentally different psychoanalyses at different points in her life. The first analysis was focused on uncovering the unrecognized story of her early family life. The second demonstrated how she was unknowingly replaying that family life in her relationship with her analyst, "I was reliving my whole childhood in our relationship." She came to recognize the "unacknowledged parts of myself" that her analyst "coaxed from its psychic den." She invites us into the frenetic 'regressive' periods where she both desperately craved the affections of her analyst and simultaneously refused to accept the care that was being offered. Multiple episodes of rupture and repair led her to come to terms with the human condition, both her own and her analysts. She closes with "As minutely as I've described these two analyses, I feel as if I've left half unsaid. And yet, as Kristi might say, it's enough."   Our Guest: Joan K. Peters, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Literature and Writing at California State University at California. She is the author most recently of Untangling: A Memoir of Psychoanalysis. At last year's meeting of The American Psychoanalytic Association, she gave a talk on memoir and psychoanalysis, and in the upcoming one, her book will be the subject of a panel discussion. In addition to her blog for Psychology Today, she's contributed an essay on dream interpretation for Psychoanalytic Inquiry, and is guest editing a special issue of that same journal on "The Patient Experience."   Recommended Readings: Patient Narratives – an annotated list  The Classics These few analysands who wrote (later on) about their analyses in the 1930's – 1950's offer brief and impressionistic overviews:   H.D.'s Tribute to Freud (New Directions, New York: 1956).   Nini Herman, My Kleinian Home: A Journey Through Four Psychotherapies (Free Association Books, London: 1988)   Margaret I. Little, Psychotic Anxieties and Containment: A Personal Record of An Analysis with Winnicott, (Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, London: 1985)   Contemporary Memoirs:   Marie Cardinal, The Words To Say It, in French, 1975; English, (VanVactor & Goodheart, Cambridge, Mass.: 1983), introduction by Bruno Bettelheim.   Emma Forrest, Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir (Other Press, New York: 2011)   Andrew Solomon's beautiful essay, "Grieving for the Therapist Who Taught Me How to Grieve," The New Yorker, May 10, 2020, is more of a tribute to his therapist than an account of the process.   Best-sellers   Solomon's The Noonday Sun: An Atlas of Depression   Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Vintage Books, New York: 1995)   Elyn R. Saks' The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Hachette Books, New York: 2007) are records of triumph over mental illnesses more than accounts of the therapies the authors underwent.   Fuller contemporary accounts of analysis   Kim Chernin, A Different Kind of Listening: My Psychoanalysis and its Shadow (HarperCollins, New York City: 1995)   Kate Daniels, Slow Fuse of the Possible: A Memoir of Poetry and Psychoanalysis (West Virginia University Press, Morgantown: 2022) offer severe critiques of the authors' analyses.