What might be in so close that as psychoanalysts we miss it?

Abstract

What if the author were to position herself as a liar? Not of conscious lying, but an ignorance of what is so close to our collective noses that as psychoanalysts we miss it. Drawing on Harari’s (2011) description of liberal ideology, the author suggests that our contemporary psychoanalytic focus on feelings, countertransference, and intuition is more determined by our cultural era than generally recognized. It is suggested that prevailing ideology may at times serve a defensive function. The author discusses a 1970s clinical seminar in which Bion observes that the presenting analyst’s attention to feelings is “excusing” the patient (and himself). A second example, from Bion’s Cogitations (1991), underscores the complexity of being sensitive to a patient’s feelings without gratifying narcissistic demands. A final example is taken from the author’s work in which there was a pressure to allow the patient’s infantile feelings to determine the analysis. It was subsequently recognized that neither the patient’s feelings nor the analyst’s understanding were the site of authority in the analysis. Rather, authority lies in the analytic process itself.