“The Portable Analyst” Part 4
Part 4 - How it feels to sit with another person as we turn a story from something toxic, to something healing.
Part 4; A form of alchemy – in the contained space, analyst and analysand learn from each other.
I spoke above (Part 1, p.5) of an idealised engagement between two minds. In the past the concept of the “blank screen” described an idealised analytic stance in which the complete neutrality of the analyst appears as a blank screen on which the analysand can project fears and feelings.
If two minds are to engage then one mind cannot be an imperviable surface. Even in my training years this analytic position was fading (Ogden T. H., 1994) . The blank screen, while possibly only a metaphor, can become a withholding of care and attention. It does not support the human engagement needed for the growth of the infant mind or the injured mind. In my mind it held the seeds of abuse. Somehow, I needed to maintain a stance that did not judge but did engage. And at the same time, I had to withold from the patient my internal reflections of my “own stuff”. The engagement is real but not a social exchange, where the listening therapist also demands to be heard. It is not that the analyst’s personal material is not the patient’s business. It is that it must not be the patient’s burden.
The epigraph of at Part 1 of this essay continues “And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space… You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time.” (Munro, 1996) This could be a description of therapeutic creativity, and the relationship between writer and reader is a poignant metaphor. The relationship that therapist and patient experience, leads to growth and new understanding. I think it is the therapist who is the “reader” understanding not just the words, but also the currents of thought not yet known or expressed. The patient is the author.
We jointly weave a new narrative that helps to give form to the unthought and the, until now, unthinkable furnishings of the mind. With this new thread of knowledge the patient is ready to go on to a new stage of her life; as a person who has built a sense of her own freedom and integrity. This must be the therapist’s hope, too. (Cardinal, 1993)
Wandering has also become part of the work. All my consulting room moves in London were the result of external forces, for instance outgrowing the limited hours offered by the owner of the room or a landlord ending the lease. Or fleeing the plague. Part of the work and part of the life.
Containment and boundaries remain non negotiable bases for therapeutic work. The question is where are these boundaries built? And how solid are they? In another perspective of containment, Carlo Rovelli reflects that conceptualizing the world is always changing; reality is made up of relations rather than objects. (Rovelli, 2021)
If there are no relationships, there are no objects. This suggests that it is within the bonds of attachment between two people that a safe space, what Winnicott describes as a transitional space, has the potential to exist. That space has been found not only, nor even most importantly, in the consulting room, but also in the analyst’s mind and in the creative space created by analyst and patient together.
So, The “Portable Analyst” emerges from the containing space, as a convenient device in which to carry away essential elements. And even a kind of knapsack for the analyst in these testing times. From my point of view nothing could be more welcome to the analyst than to know that s/he is not needed for the patient to continue to grow; to know that she will engage not only with her version of the analyst, but also with springs of knowledge from the living world, is the greatest reward the analyst can imagine. Indeed, usually one must depend upon imagination, for after the work ends, the analyst can know no more.
Note:
“The portable analyst” - I borrowed the title from Mignon Nixon, describing a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois. (Nixon, 2012) This is the second in a series of Clinical Memoirs. The first, Therapists and Patients at the Epicentre of a Pandemic of Not knowing can be found here www.therapyroute.com/article/therapists-and-patients-at-the-epicentre-of-a-pandemic--of-not-knowing-by-a-foster
Anne Foster, MA, FPC (Fellow), UKCP is a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist in private practice in Buckinghamshire, UK, although one of the strange gifts of the pandemic is the ability to be present for people through technology that makes borders truly liminal. She is a writer and presenter. [email protected]
Works Cited - This bibliography refers to works consulted and cited in all four parts, and will be repeated in each part
Abram, J. B. (Ed.). (2019). The Enigma of the Hour: Display Case Compendium: 100 years of Psychoanalytic Thought curated by Simon Moretti with Goshka Macuga and Dana Birksted-Breen. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 100:1481-1613, 100. Retrieved February 2, 2022, from https://pep-web.org/search/document/IJP.100.1481A?page=P1548&preview=IJP.100.1481A&q=blank%20screen%20
Akhtar, S. (2009). Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac.
Arquitectura-G. (2021). Leopold Banchini: Not Nomadic. apartamento(27), pp. 193-216.
Bourgeois, L. (2019). The Spider and the Tapestries. Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag.
Bronfen, E. (2012). Contending with the Father: Louise Bourgeois and her Aesthetics of Reparation. In P. Larratt-Smith (Ed.), Return of the Repressed (Vol. 1, pp. 101-114). London: Violette Ltd.
Caper, R. (1999). A Mind of One's Own. London: Routledge.
Cardinal, M. (1993). Les mots pour le dire. London: British Classical Pressan imprint of Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
de Waal, E. (2010). The Hare with Amber Eyes. London: Chatto & Windus.
Foster, A. (2020). Therapists and Patients at the Centre of a Pandemic of Not knowing. Retrieved 2021, from TherapyRoute.com: https://www.therapyroute.com/article/therapists-and-patients-at-the-epicentre-of-a-pandemic-of-not-knowing-by-a-foster
Hirsch, E. (2021). Derek Walcott; The art of poetry no. 37. In Poets at Work; Interviews from the Paris Review (pp. 230-271). New York: Paris Review of Books.
Hockney, D., & Gayford, M. (2016). A History of Pictures. From the Cave to the Computer Screen. London: Thames & Hudson.
Holmes, J. (2001). The Search for the Secure Base; Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy. Hove: Routledge.
Holmes, J. (2020). The Brain has a Mind of its Own. London: Confer.
Indiana, G. (2019). Gary Indiana on the psychoanalytic writings of Louise Bourgeois – Hauser & Wirth. Retrieved from www.hauserwirth.com/ursula: https://www.hauserwirth.com/ursula/25821-gary-indiana-psychoanalytic-writings-louise-bourgeois/
Kuspit, D. (2012). Louise Bourgeois in Psychanalysis with Henry Lowenfeld. In P. Larratt-Smith (Ed.), The Return of the Repressed (Vol. 1, pp. 17-30). London: Violette.
Küster, U. (2018). Louise Bourgeois. Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag.
Leader, D. (2019). Bacon and the Body. In Bacon and the Mind; art, neuroscience and psychology (pp. 62-97). London: Thames and Hudson; Estate of Francis Bacon.
McLane, M. (2021). Susan Howe; The Art of Poetry No. 97. In V. Seshadri (Ed.), Poets at Work; Interviews from the Paris Review (pp. 272-303). New York: Paris Review Editions.
Munro, A. (1996). Selected Stories. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Nixon, M. (2012). L. In P. Laratt-Smith (Ed.), The Return of the Repressed (pp. 85-100). London: Violette.
Ogden, T. (2015). On Potential Space. In M. Boyd Spelman, & F. Thomson-Salo (Eds.), The Winnicott Tradition; Lines of Development - Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades (pp. 121 - 137). London: Karnac Books.
Ogden, T. H. (1994). The Analytic Third: Working with Intersubjective Clinical Facts. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 75:3-19.
Preta, L. (Ed.). (2015). Geographies of Psychoanalysis; Encounters between cultures in Iran. Mimeses International.
Rayner, E. (2015). Two Pioneers in the history of infant mental health; Winnicott and Bowlby. In M. B. Spelman, & F. Thomson-Salo (Eds.), The Winnicott Tradition (pp. 363-370). London: Karnac Books.
Resnik, S. (2007). Biografie dell'Inconsio. Rome: Borla.
Rovelli, C. (2021). Helgoland. London: Allen Lane an imprint of Penguin Books.
Schinaia, C. (2016, 05 22). Psychoanalysis and Architecture: The Inside and the Ouside, by Cosimo Schinaia. Retrieved 05 29, 2018, from https://karanacology.com: karnacology.com/2016/05/22/psychonalysis-and-architecture
Schinaia, C. (2016). Psychoanalysis and Architecture; The Inside and the Outside. London: Karnac.
Singer, L. (. (2021, spring/summer). Louise Bourgeois. apartamento, pp. 82-113.
St Clair, K. (2016). Secret Lives of Colour. London: John Murray Press.
Street, S. (2020). The Sound of a Room; Memory and the Auditory Presence of Place. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Tate Museum of Modern Art. (2022, March 18). The Art of Louise Bourgeois. Retrieved 2022, from www.tate.org.uk/art/artists: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351/art-louise-bourgeois
The Art Of Memory; Pierre Bonnard. (2019, January 2021). London, England. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/pierre-bonnard-781/art-memory
Verhaeghe, P., & De Ganck, J. (2012). Beyond the Return of the Repressed: Louise Bourgeois's Chtonic Art. In Larratt-Smith (Ed.), Louise Bourgeois The return of the repressed (pp. 115 - 128). London: Violette Eidtions.
Verhaegue, P. (2008). On Being Normal and Other Disorders. London: Karnac.
Vickers, N. (2020). Winnicott's notion of 'holding' as applied to serious physical illness. BJP, 36(4), 610-620.
Who is Louise Bourgeois. (2022, March 18). Retrieved from www.tate.org.uk/kibds: https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-louise-bourgeois
Zagajewski, A. (2021, May 14). Tart Cherries, Sweet Cherries. Times Literary Supplement, 11. (C. Cavanagh, Trans.)
Anne is a qualified Psychotherapist (Registered), based in Speen, United Kingdom.
With a commitment to mental health, Mrs Foster provides services in English and French, including Psychotherapy (Dynamic).
Mrs Foster has expertise in Anxiety Disorders, Bereavement and Loss and Depression.
Click here to schedule a session with Mrs Foster.
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