Make Someone Happy: Reflections on Giving and Receiving in Love and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

The balance of giving and receiving in social relationships, with each person knowing they can rely on the other when in need, is at least in part what makes a relationship durable and enduring. This principle applies as well, I argue, to the therapeutic relationship, even though mutuality in psychoanalysis involves its own uniquely complicated dynamic of giving and taking. Using an extensive clinical vignette, this chapter explores the ways that learning and growing takes place both for therapist and patient in the course of psychoanalytic work.

Keywords:

• analytic love
• mutuality
• traumatic narcissism
• lovelessness
• transparency

Notes

¹ “Make Someone Happy,” from the Broadway show, Do-Re-Mi, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. A moving version of the song was recorded by Tony Bennett accompanied by Bill Evans on piano. Less artistically sublime for jazz lovers, but irresistible in its own way is Jimmy Durante’s recording. Both are easily accessible on YouTube.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Shaw

Daniel Shaw, LCSW, is the author of Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation. He is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and in Nyack, New York; and Faculty and Supervisor at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York.