Merle Heidi Molofsky's Responses

I was delighted to read Gary Fleishman's response, because as I kept reading, I kept feeling truly understood. I thought, “Oh, he really gets it!”

Yes, I agree, psychoanalysis lives in an aesthetic dimension of human expression. Yes, part of that aesthetic dimension is a fusion of art and science, true creativity.

In identifying the possibility of a shared objective, even as there may be a host of theoretical disputes, Gary Fleishman recognizes that a shared objective may involve how we metabolize memories into meaning. He recognizes that what is important is not which theory “wins out” in intellectual discussions, but, rather, how our cultural memory shapes what we do and hear in the analytic encounter. His language is poetic, metaphorical, and he uses his depth of understanding to raise new questions. Is culture founded on a dialectical relation between what is conscious and unconscious? And he offers what may be the beginning of an answer, “the theoretical orientation is shaped by the same unconscious processes it tries to study”.

I resonate with metaphors that mention music. Nota bene, “resonate” is a musical term. He says, “to listen psychoanalytically is to listen culturally, to hear in language the music of history, and in defense of survival.”

His sensitive clinical vignette is presented in a context of “what we hear”, as he identifies defenses, such as a “retreat into silence”. He presents the defense of intellectualization as an effort to preserve an old cultural narrative written in the “emotional language of survival”. His presents his clinical work as an ongoing dialogue between memory and culture.

Response To Lee Jenkins's Response

Lee Jenkins is a psychoanalyst, published poet, published fiction writer, just as I am. We resonate in many ways. We met when we both were

candidates at our psychoanalytic institute, in a class that was being taught by a psychoanalyst who had a PhD in literature, and we were delighted by his