Conversation with Merle Heidi Molofsky

MSK: We will try and focus on your paper but give us a sense of the story of your life Merle. Let's start with that.

MHM: I think my paper is a reflection. It is on my reflecting over the years, about the plural contexts of my life. What really resonates with me? What matters? What am I drawn to? What did I choose to learn? What was I surprised to learn? But it is always in the context.

It is interesting, because I've been affiliated with and taught at different psychoanalytic institutes as a faculty member. When I was a candidate, met other people like me, we were all learning together. What I noticed very early on is that I was meeting a lot of people who were becoming psychoanalysts who were complaining. They had very bitter feelings about their past, about their childhood. It was very different from what I had experienced. I thought that I was one of the few who had a happy childhood. Happy in terms of my family life. There were other stressors, other difficulties but I was very happy with my parents, my brother, my relatives, and my parents' friends.

My relatives in this small niche of family were different from the people in the community where I lived. The values were different. For instance, the men on the block I lived on played poker every now and then, not all the time. And they talked about sports, cars. That's all I ever heard them talking about. They were outside, and they were animated and talking. And the women played Mahjong. They didn't come outside to talk the way the men did. They sat on the porch, with other women. What they were doing was of no interest to my parents.

My father worked six days a week and had Sunday free. That was it. And he never complained. One day he was outside, and there were some men talking, and I heard him talking to them about cars, and sports. And later, I said to him, “Daddy, how come you were talking about cars and sports, when you don't watch sports, and you're never interested in cars

and sports? “He was very sweet