Intolerable Countertransference? Why We Usually Cannot Approach What is Called “Circumcision”

In this article I attempt to address what is called “circumcision,” and the trauma of having endured it, by reflecting on what happened when I turned time after time to psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for help. As the title suggests, the responses I received over the course of 20 years have largely conveyed to me that this trauma cannot be encountered beyond a cursory mention. Wherein I venture to write this, putting into words something quite difficult to express, I am moved to do so upon learning, through Carlo Bonomi’s articles and books, that Freud’s patient Emma Eckstein, herself the first analyst (albeit briefly) trained by Freud, had endured what is called “circumcision.” Where Freud recoiled from witnessing this trauma, psychoanalysis itself was born (Bonomi, C. 2023. A brief apocalyptic history of psychoanalysis. Erasing trauma. Routledge). This history implores me to speak. But can analysts bear to witness any more now than they could then? I would think not; it seems that the longstanding arrangements of power and vulnerability render this kind of trauma unapproachable even today. Yet Bonomi’s work and my own current analysis allow me to believe psychoanalysis does have the potential to stay with the horror from which most people flee and revivify, there, an impetus for changemaking.