Abstract
Throughout my lifetime I have had a vague sense of my identity. There were no distinct memories or stories from my childhood and adolescence to provide me with the recognition, much less an appreciation, for who I was in the world. It wasn’t until I entered psychotherapy that revelations about my family life came into understanding. This was not from any recollecting of actual events but from the indirect observations of families where being engaged with each other had occurred. Through psychoanalysis, reading a variety of psychoanalytic thinkers, and by taking up my own writing I was encouraged to discover myself, even at the cost of the sorrow of never having that encouragement in growing up, the cost that comes with the exploration. Where no childhood home was to be found a new one was to be created instead.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
References
Balint, M. (1968). Regression and the child in the patient. The basic fault: Therapeutic aspects of regression (pp. 79–91). London: Tavistock.
Daum, M. (2014). The unspeakable; And other sects of discussion. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux.
De Botton, A. (1998). How Proust can change your life. New York: Vintage.
Ferenczi, S. (1931). Child analysis and the analysis of adults. Final contributions to psychoanalysis (pp. 126–142). New York: Basic Books.
Ferenczi, S. (1932). The clinical diary of Sandor Ferenczi (J. Dupont (Ed.), M. Balint & N.Z. Jackson (Trans.)). Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press. 1988.
Hampl, P. (1999). Memory and imagination. I could tell you stories; Sojourns in the land of memory (pp. 21–37). New York: W. W. Norton.
Khan, M. (1974). The concept of cumulative trauma. The privacy of the self; Papers on psychoanalytic theory and technique (pp. 42–58). London: Karnac.
Miller, A. (1978). The drama of the gifted child: The search for the true self. New York: Basic Books.
Miller, J. (2007). Owning It. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 67, 386–396.
Miller, J. (2013). The wilde analyst. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 73, 84–97.
Milner, M. (1959). On not being able to paint. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Stern, D. (1985). The interpersonal world of the child: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. USA: Basic Books.
Winnicott, D. W. (1970). Fear of breakdown. International Review of Psychoanalysis, 1, 103–107.
Author information
Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Address correspondence to Joel Miller, M.D, 2810 E. Del Mar Blvd, Suite 9, Pasadena, CA, 91107, USA.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Miller, J. I Am a Mystery to Myself. Am J Psychoanal 77, 392–398 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-017-9116-3
Published:
Issue Date:
Keywords
- neglect
- autobiography
- inter-generational trauma
- Winnicott
- Ferenczi