If twenty-five years on the couch contributes to an understanding of Psychoanalysis, I might legitimately claim to have some knowledge. During my twenty-five years as patient, I also began to study psychoanalysis theoretically. I got so interested that I organized and attended advanced study groups, then sought training and supervision from leading members of the psychoanalytic community. During these seed-years I learned a great deal about interpretation, neutrality and objectivity, all of which I later learned to set aside in order to evolve my own way of talking with people. Many years later, to my considerable surprise, I became the first person not trained by the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute to be invited to teach there. With a colleague, I taught a course in psychoanalytic theories.
I've never cared at all whether Psychoanalysis was or was not a science. To me, it has seemed more like the collaborative creation of a piece of art, the outcome being an unexpected, often unimaginable form of the self. I read the debates about the limitations of Psychoanalysis, agree with some, find almost all irrelevant. There are many ways to come to know the self. For some people, Psychoanalysis is an outstanding method. Who cares then how it describes itself or is described? It also has it limitations, but these have little to do with its absence of scientific rigor.
It seems to me that the exploration, growth and cultivation of one's spirituality are essential to any process of self-discovery and healing. In my own work as a psychoanalytic patient, I hoped to find a significant understanding of spiritual yearning and development. When I did not find it, but rather set out looking for it on my own, I determined that, as a consultant, I would never neglect the spiritual dimension of feeling or thought when talking to the people who came to talk with me. Psychoanalysis, as a body of thought, does not exactly welcome this concentration on spiritual concerns, yet it can be made to serve them well. With some tinkering and imagination it can offer a method through which the obstacles and inhibitions encountered in spiritual development can be linked back to childhood experience and thus overcome through a steady examination of the troubles and learnings of childhood.
A spiritual rather than a scientific Psychoanalysis. What a lovely idea...
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