Close to the Edge

Abstract

This essay is an individual reflection on the analyst’s personal history of loss and trauma, as well as part of a theoretical exploration of the unconscious forces always at play in analytic work. The death of a father by suicide and a patient’s uncanny intuition lead to the “expulsion” and resolution of a family secret.

Keywords:

• development
• loss
• memory
• mourning
• trauma.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Ferguson

Heather Ferguson, LCSW, psychoanalyst, treats individuals, couples, and groups in private practice in New York City. She is faculty and supervisor at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, the Manhattan Institute, and the Institute for Expressive Analysis. She has chapters in Ghosts in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Trauma in Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2016; Harris, Kalb, & Klebanoff, eds.) and Art, Creativity, and Psychoanalysis: Perspectives from Analyst-Artists (Routledge, 2017; Hagman, ed.). She is an associate editor of Psychoanalysis, Self and Context and presents on a range of topics related to creativity, trauma, and grief.