A Response to Weisel-Barth and Bodnar

Abstract

I consider first the value of reinstating narrative at the center of the psychoanalytic process. I go on to examine how the analytic field encompasses multiple self-states and multiple cultures in a drive toward unity.

I want to begin by expressing my appreciation of the thoughtful commentaries by Joye Weisel-Barth and Susan Bodnar, which offer not so much a criticism of the ideas expressed in this paper as an expansion and gentle questioning of them. I want to thank Weisel-Barth in particular for pointing out that my article was an attempt to pick up a vanishing strain in psychoanalysis. Freud (1913) enjoined his patients to say whatever came to mind, and in turn he would try to listen with even hovering attention in order to sift out the unconscious derivations without prejudice. When intense feelings for the analyst got in the way of what was meant to be a scientific and neutral process, Freud trained his “instrument” on the relationship, and analyzing transference became integral to the method. But the purpose of the enterprise was always to cure through reconstruction, to enable patients to remember rather than to relive. From its inception, the process of psychoanalysis involved piecing together a hitherto unarticulated account of the patient’s experiences—in short, a narrative. We may no longer believe that we can precisely replicate the past in words, we may no longer trust the objectivity and authority of the analyst, and certainly the drive-conflict genre has lost much of its persuasive power, but when we forget that we are helping people tell their stories, we lose a shared sense of purpose. Few of us come to therapy to have a relationship, although we usually end up in one.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Goldin

Daniel Goldin, M.F.T., is in private practice in South Pasadena, where he treats adults, adolescents, and children, with a special interest in helping those in recovery. In a previous career, he wrote feature screenplays for most of the major Hollywood studios. More recently, he has also written for the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and The International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology. He has a paper appearing in Psychoanalytic Inquiry.