Bearings Lost, Then Found: A Discussion of Laura D’Angelo’s “Gasping for Air: Working With a Suicidal Patient”

ABSTRACT

This discussion of Laura D’Angelo’s moving paper “Gasping for Air: Working with a Suicidal Patient” contextualizes the complex relational enactment D’Angelo and her patient Zoe cocreate. After considering the complex issue of suicide through the lens of Richard Heckler’s work and my clinical experience, I expand on the theories of Anna Ornstein and Marion Tolpin, which D’Angelo considers, by visiting the theories of Amanda Kottler, Koichi Togashi, Jody Davies and Mary Gail Frawley, and Hilary Maddux. Through her courgeous personal work, D’Angelo finds the bearings she lost with her patient. It is a gift that she and Zoe found each other.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide
• enactment
• twinship selfobject transference
• the psychology of being human
• trailing and forward edge
• complex dynamic systems theory

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol B. Levin

Carol B. Levin, M.D., is a faculty member at Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, a member of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society, and is a training analyst at the Michigan Council for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Levin is also an associate editor of, Psychoanalysis, Self and Context and Psychoanalytic Inquiry.