Yearning for Godot: Repetition and Vulnerability in Psychoanalysis

Abstract

This article finds resonance between psychoanalysis and Beckett’s landmark play, “Waiting for Godot.” In the play, both tramps await Godot; in analysis, participants await markedly different “Godots.” Analysands often begin in hope of a concretized or literal “cure” or “savior,” as analysts encounter strongly defended curative fantasies or desires (even demands) for antidotes, while analysts themselves hope for the mutual development of a new relational home for the patient, and empathic understanding of long-sequestered trauma-affect—the very affective experiencing many patients, in this author’s experience, have long needed to dissociate or repress via those same stubbornly entrenched defensive processes. The dyadic process is further complexified via the analyst’s own developmental hopes of providing “good enough” healing or empathic understanding, which may possibly disappoint an analysand hoping for “cure” or affective bypass—possibly provoking an analyst’s own fear of “failing” or disappointing others. The article suggests a way both may find analytic “traction” or relatedness within a fraught intersubjective field.

Keywords:

• accommodation
• addiction
• antidote
• Atwood
• Beckett
• Brandchaft
• compulsive
• concretization
• concretize
• curative
• defensive
• developmental
• existential
• fantasy
• finitude
• Godot
• intersubjective-systems
• psychoanalysis
• repetitive
• ritual
• Stolorow

Notes

¹ Beckett claimed to have chosen this name because “he is Lucky to have no more expectations” (Bair, 1990, p. 384).

² He once remarked that he preferred wartime France to peace-time Ireland (Kenner, 1968).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Darren Haber

Darren Haber, M.F.T., Psy.D., is a recent graduate of ICP, with a private practice in West Los Angeles. He specializes in treating addiction (including substance abuse and sexual compulsivities), adult survivors of early trauma, anxiety/depression, and related issues. His paper “Accommodating Brandchaft” is in press with Psychoanalytic Inquiry. His paper “Yearning for Godot” won the 2017 Dr. Daphne S. Stolorow Memorial Essay award, as well as the 2016 IJPSP Best Candidate Essay contest. Darren is also a frequent blogger on GoodTherapy.org, Psychology Today, and other sites.