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With this, the last of my regular “Clinician's Corner” columns, it would be impossible for me to overstate the delight I have had in playing in so luxuriously welcoming an intellectual playground. I was recently asked to provide a brief statement summarizing my central views after my half century of clinical experience, and my response then seems fitting for my last regular clinical statement in this scholarly arena.
Dum spiro spero. While I breathe I hope, and one thing I hope is that I continue to learn. Conclusions are only views held “so far,” for experience is always unfolding, always still becoming. Thus, what I say now is my last column but not a last word, and that is so despite the half century that has led to this moment. It is, nonetheless, what I think at this moment.
The psychoanalyst's task is facilitating the introspection and self-mastery of the analysand, paying particular attention to the exposure and exploration of unconscious forces, always working in the service of the other. Consequently, philosophy and psychoanalysis are not allied professions but are like a single college course in which philosophy is the lecture section and clinical analysis the laboratory.
Reflection on years spent in the clinical laboratory has led me to hold profound respect for three foundational principles: individuality, otherness, and outsiderness. They are not the only tenets that can be drawn from practice, but they are essential.
First, individuality. Even within the context of our common humanity, no two people are the same. Clinical work demands appreciation of the singularity, the particularity, the distinctiveness of each person. Humanity is infinitely variable,