Dr. phil. Barbara Saegesser
Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
Episode Description:
We begin by discussing the depth of human pain that Barbara encountered in her work in the poorest areas of Eastern Africa. She describes how essential her psychoanalytic sensibility was to enable her attunement to the closeness/distance space that was so important for mutual safety and understanding. She gives examples of the all-encompassing role of the Koran in those with whom she worked as well as the lack of a subjective self in many of the individuals she encountered. We learn of the effects of genital mutilation and the various reactions she had in seeing such suffering. We close with her sharing with us a bit of her personal story that has led her to this work.
Our Guest:
Dr. phil. Barbara Saegesser is a training analyst with the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society and a member of the IPA. She is president of the commission treating ethical problems in the Swiss Society of Psychoanalysis. Since 2005 she has worked part-time in Eastern Islamic African cities: Alexandria, Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Hawassa, Djibouti, Kampala, and Zanzibar. Her work has been in orphanages, with street boys, in baby shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and maternity wards for genitally mutilated women.