Let the Yoga Do You: Clinical Decision-Making, Ambiguity, and Certainty

ABSTRACT

In this article, I share a vignette from a long-term analysis, illustrating my experience during the scene and the clinical decisions that I make both in and out of my awareness. The vignette is notable for strong affect, as well as intense and surprising imagery and words. What is also notable is that this scene rings true. This article is equal parts a demonstration of pretheoretical moments of clinical decision-making and a discussion of clinical epistemology. I examine what it means when something rings true, explain the value of holding certainty and ambiguity in a dialectic tension, and describe conditions under which we may trust the ring of truth in clinical situations. Finally, I show how I find my way to psychoanalytic faith in this clinical example, as I experience an informed surrender to the psychoanalytic process.

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Christina Emanuel

Christina Emanuel, PsyD., is a Training and Supervising Analyst and faculty member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles, and practices in Pasadena, California. She is a member of the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.