“When the patient is in danger because he is physically ill, or the analyst is in danger because he is physically ill, like with the current situation, the analytic work needs a community of denial.”
Marilia Aisenstein
Paris
Episode Description:
Harvey Schwartz welcomes Marilia Aisenstein to this episode. Marilia Aisenstein is a training analyst at the Paris Psychoanalytical Society and of the Hellenic Psychoanalytical Society. She is a past president of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society, past President of l’Institut de Psychosomatique de Paris, former European representative to the Board, and former Chair of International Psychoanalytical Association International New Groups. Marilia is the author of many papers and publications about psychosomatics and received the Bouvet Award in 1992.
She is currently in private practice in Paris and she gives seminars to both the Hellenic and the Paris Society. Marilia’s latest book in English is titled An Analytic Journey: From the Art of Archery to the Art of Psychoanalysis.
In today’s conversation, Marilia shares her rich and nuanced grasp on the clinical encounter, engaging these changing, challenging, and difficult times that we are all struggling with.
Key Takeaways:
[4:55] Marilia Aisenstein talks about the current situation in Paris.
[8:28] Marilia shares how the French psychoanalytic community has been reacting to the Covid-19 crisis.
[11:20] The interesting reactions of patients to online sessions.
[13:44] Marilia shares how she is coping with the questions regarding the online modality.
[16:24] What we thought was a “sin” in a psychoanalytical frame, it is now being challenged by times that force us to adapt.
[17:35] The IPA rules for distant psychoanalysis.
[18:17] Marilia shares clinical examples.
[19:58] Marilia assesses the matter of denial.
[21:30] The concept of a soft community of denial.
[21:57] What is sustaining Marilia through these tough times?
Mentioned in This Episode
IPA Off the Couch – www.ipaoffthecouch.org
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Dear Dr. Aisenstein,
Thanks a lot. I would like to know more about your concept “community of soft denial”. Very interesting. Take care. Big hug from Lima, Peru.
Thank you for an interesting and inspiring podcast
Dear Dr. Aisenstein,
Thank you for your reflective, wise, and wonderful thoughts on the present moment and being a telemental health “sinner.” I think a community of “soft denial” or to sample Adrienne Harris “softly assembled denial” is important but politically complex given that so many Americans (I write you from the U.S. epicenter, NYC) are not taking the threat to themselves and to others seriously. Of course we do not want to barrel through our patients ways of coping that are adaptively utilizing denial, but I’m wonderingvhow you might deal with “a community of soft denial” should you or your patient need to stop working together because of Covid-19? It’s preoccupying to me at the moment. Thank you for reading. Wishing you all the best and as we say in the States, “Stay Safe.” –Kim Rosenfield LCSW
Thank you very much! Keep well🙏
dear Marilia Aisenstein, Thanks a lot for this contribution during these difficult times for all of us.
I listened with a bit of an analytic suspended attention… (it’s my lunch break, we all need a pause) and I was caught by this at first uncanny idea of ‘community denial’.
I’d like to ask you or whoever wishes to expand the idea a little, not much, and softly for sure. It resonated with this late feeling of mine of having a very safe space (the cyber-space) to work between me and my patients, where we live/work safely, with a little less care for the outside world. And despite the fact this may sound a bit of a denial, it allow us to keep up with the analytic work. What we can do is probably still to be considered limited (as Stefano Bolognini said in his webinar last sunday), and we have to accept not the limit of skype, but everyone’s limits at this time. Although, it is helpful a soft (a kind, a little half playful, half realistic) denial, of this strange condition we are going trough. Ultimately, I also believe this in between soft denial, is the source for the hope we all need to support each other in these days. Thanks a lot again, now I go back to my lunch, and then working again. Kind regards, Luisa