“I feel so strongly about this [collective commemorative ritual]. I think that early psychoanalytic writing overemphasized the value of separation-individuation and pathologized the opposite. It’s been through personal experience that I have come to see that in a different way with regard to Jewish commemorative ritual which takes place a couple of times a year. But also some experiences that I have had outside the realm of religion. The one that pops to mind was what President Biden did about a year after the first onslaught of the Covid epidemic. He had candles put all around the reflecting pool in Washington, one candle for every number of people who had died, and this was broadcast on television. I sat there and I wept over thousands of deaths, and then I began to think about the power of the experience of mourning with others. Despite the fact that we didn’t all lose the same person, we had all lost somebody to this virus that was not as yet being managed. There was something incredibly powerful about that – in the same way for those who lost someone on 9/11 who go down to the Twin Towers and read the list of names every year. But we analysts have not theorized this stuff and I think it’s time that we did.”
Joyce Shlochower, PhD
New York
Episode Description:
We begin with Joyce sharing with us her evolution from being a young analyst who was essentially ever available to her struggling patients to now being “more aware of the problematic edge to a kind of responsiveness that once felt simply necessary.” We discuss what she calls analyst’s ‘secret delinquencies’ – when the clinician intentionally withdraws from the patient into personal matters “so that the analyst becomes the single subject in the room.” We consider post-treatment friendships between analyst and analysand and the nature of the evolution of the transference. Joyce shares with us her reflections on growing older and the mixed blessings it provides in terms of greater experience and clinical wisdom as well as a tempting “disengagement from an earlier sense of therapeutic discipline.” We close with her suggestion that we consider the “dynamic function of commemorative ritual” not as a mere enactment but as a fulsome experience for “reworking old connections.”
Our Guest:
Joyce Slochower Ph.D., ABPP, is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Hunter College & the Graduate Center, CUNY; faculty, NYU Postdoctoral Program, Steven Mitchell Center, National Training Program of NIP, Philadelphia Center for Relational Studies & and PINC in San Francisco. She is the author of Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective (1996; & 2014) and Psychoanalytic Collisions (2006 & 2014), and co-Editor, with Lew Aron and Sue Grand, of “De-idealizing relational theory: a Critique from Within” and “Decentering Relational Theory: a Comparative Critique” (2018). Her new book, Psychoanalysis and the Unspoken, was released by Routledge in June 2024. She is in private practice in New York City.
Recommended Reading:
2024 Psychoanalysis and the Unspoken. NY, London: Routledge.
2024 Factions are Back. Journal of the American Psychoanal. Assn., 72(4): 561-582.
2018 Deidealizing Relational Theory: A Critique from Within. L. Aron, S. Grand, & J. Slochower, Eds. London: Routledge.
2017 Don’t tell anyone. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 34: 195-200.
2014 Holding and Psychoanalysis: A Relational Perspective (2nd Edition). New York: Routledge.
2014 Psychoanalytic Collisions: (2nd Edition), New York: Routledge.
I so appreciated many of Dr. Slochower’s insights. I found her description of “delinquencies” being the flip-side of proper self-care very guiding, as well as her consideration of what is perhaps an over-emphasis on separation/ de-individuation, and the richness found in a self-exploration that is oriented toward curiosity instead of criticism. As a dynamic clinician early in my career, the interview was beneficial to me.
However I was distressed and wounded by Dr. Slochower’s statement that she is “very lucky not to work with any Trump supporters,” as well as Dr. Schwartz’s hand in this infliction by his failure to notice this as discriminatory and prejudiced. Would such a public, sophisticated, and serious podcast allow guests to make statements such as “I am very lucky not to work with any Christians,” or “I am very lucky not to work with any Democrats?” Why, when it comes to political orientation, do we continue to put our diversity ideals way to the side? I truly think this statement was horrific, on a personal level and an intellectual one. I am baffled by the ability of these two great thinkers to let it be said and stand. There were already several episodes in which guests openly denounced Trump, conservatism, and Republicans. How long will we continue to grant immunity to psychoanalysts discriminating against a great swath of our society? Why would we? Psychoanalysis will truly suffer if this continues to be such a blind spot. I invite a nuanced discussion with analysts struggling to work against their personal, political beliefs, but an abhorrent statement such as this one did not carry any of the ambivalence or empathy that is necessary for work with humans. I was also disturbed by the closing of the episode when Dr. Slochower’s was praised for not taking a “moralistic” stance. How was this exact statement not one?
I want to respond to Naomi’s posting. While I appreciate your appreciation of my discussion of delinquencies and the underbelly of our emphasis on separation-individuation, I’m sorry that you were distressed and hurt by my statement that I’m lucky not to have any Trump supporters in my practice. You note, correctly, that were my statement to have been directed at a different subgroup, it would be easily denounced as prejudiced.
First, I apologize for having distressed and offended you. This was absolutely not my intention. I can well understand how painful my offhand comment could feel and see that I should not have said it, or at least to have done a better job of explaining myself.
I was not boasting. I explicitly stated that my feeling about Trump patients reflects my limit: “My inability to work well with people whose politics diverge from mine reflects my personal failure… I don’t have confidence in my ability to not get so disregulated that I would not do a good job.”
I was trying, clearly not succeeding, to say the following: 1) Here’s an illustration of the way that one’s personhood (in this instance, my politics) impinge on the capacity to do good analytic work; 2) I recognize that this is my limit and is not a position of moral superiority.
I think we all contend with these kinds of personal limits around one or another issue—that there are patients we can’t work with or can’t work with well. We have, I believe, an ethical obligation to both interrogate our prejudice and, if we can’t work it through, to disqualify ourselves from treating the person.
From my perspective, there’s a core professional ethic embedded in our capacity to acknowledge our own limitations. Yes, we need to work with them rather than treating them as immutable. But at times, we need to be able to say that we cannot ethically take on a given treatment because our personal beliefs/feelings/etc., present an interference that we’re not yet able to work through. I think this is true for all of us, and that we have a moral obligation to acknowledge those limits, whatever their shape. None of us is above our humanity. No one can consistently remain empathic no matter whom we’re working with and no matter what the issue.
If there’s a through line to my book, that’s it: Let’s name and acknowledge our limits. Let’s query them, but let’s not pretend that we’re above them.
What a lovely reply Marian. And yes, I think one of the real upsides to aging is a freedom to prioritize what matters and step back from a kind of obligatory compliance. Many of my friends and I have agreed that “if not now when” represents the wisdom of old age. You are not there yet (age wise) so you’re ahead of the curve.
Warmly,
Joyce.
Enjoyed and learned much from the exchange in this interview as i have from many others on, Off the Couch. One thought that Harvey’s interview with Joyce sparked is how age, experience and wisdom of life – mistakes made and lessons learned – help us grow more fully into our own, becoming freer to be who we are in our essence. We benefit from this wisdom and greater freedom as do our patients for whom we model our human frailties and strengths. Interestingly, I see a parallel outside the consulting room as a woman in her sixties. It is ironic that at the age of retirement for many, I am just starting to put together the puzzle pieces of my life, for example, what to prioritize and what to let go. In years past, opportunities I’d pass on for fear of possible failure, I now embrace and grow excited by. And as I work with a patient, I place in the foreground the question, what does this patient need from me right now? I feel freer and more confident to draw on my inner wisdom; theory remains, but moreso in the background.