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CHARLES LEVIN:: Let's begin with your feelings about psychoanalysis. What drew you to this kind of work?
ELY GARFINKLE: The reason I became a psychoanalyst was that … I wanted to do something that would allow me to use all of myself, my capacity as a human being, my experience, everything, and put it on the table. Being a general practitioner didn't afford me that opportunity, and I was not good enough as a pianist … This of course was a rationalization; I knew I was fucked up and I needed help, and so this was a way for me to get the analysis that I needed. I didn't think at the time I would actually become a psychoanalyst. I was a rebel … a kid that needed help. I had had contact with psychoanalysts in Montreal at the Jewish General and the Allan Memorial. I was amazed by the kinds of things they were saying and I was just beginning to discover myself.
CL: It's easy for many of us to forget what a revelation the analytic way of thinking can be when we are new to it!
EG: Yeah, in the language of the time, it was mind-blowing! My early experience in the analytic community was very positive, and this was also in conjunction with my analysis with Doug Levin, which was life changing. He was a very, very good analyst. The relationship and the transformations that were occurring—the hard work … it was very difficult—but it cemented my belief that this was what I wanted to be doing.
CL: Taking off from what you were just saying about Doug Levin as your analyst: in late 1983, he was diagnosed with cancer—a severe one—and of
course you were in analysis with him at that time. Now, for over a year you have also been very ill with a diagnosis of cancer. So in a way you have come full circle from the experience of losing an analyst to cancer, to a very different kind of experience, where there is the prospect of your own death—looming much larger and much sooner than you or your patients or any of us would have hoped. How have you dealt with this situation? I know