Can I Get A Witness?: On Being Seen and Heard in a Relational Psychoanalytic Treatment

Abstract

The cries have been loud and silent. Destruction and Stillness. Most of us have not seen our patients in person for close to a year. The tables have seemingly turned. The ways of being connected to our patients and ourselves have shifted. Who do we “see” in our electronic devices? What do our patients “see” when they encounter us in sessions? What could we not “see” in each other when we sat in the same room? What is the role of Relational Psychoanalysis in helping us “see” a way forward?

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• racism
• trauma
• pandemic
• otherness
• witnessing

This article refers to:

Can I Be Your Witness? Discussion of Cynthia Chalker’s Paper: Can I Get A Witness? On Being Seen and Heard in a Relational Psychoanalytic Treatment

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cynthia C. Chalker

Cynthia Chalker, MSS, LCSW is a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in New York City. She is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and on the faculties of The South Bay Community for Psychoanalytic Study/PINC (CA); the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and Harlem Family Institute (NY). She is member, instructor and mentor in the Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Teachers Academy of the APsaA, and a Board Trustee of the Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis, from where she completed her psychoanalytic training.