Response to Marie Lenormand

I would like to thank Dr Lenormand for her thoughtful response to my paper. I am pleased that the paper has been an occasion for fresh consideration of what is fundamental to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.

In her letter, Dr. Lenormand presents a number of ideas; I will briefly respond to three. The first is the idea that I have “stripped” psychoanalysis of its most fundamental concept, the concept of the unconscious. To my mind, I am not “taking away” the concept of the unconscious, I am reconceiving it. The unconscious is not an entity that has a “place” beneath the conscious mind, it is a quality of thinking, a quality of consciousness. I find apt Merleau-Ponty’s description (in The Phenomenology of Perception) of the unconscious as the “atmosphere” of the mind, an atmosphere pregnant with the known but not yet known.

The second assertion concerns the idea that the “identity” of the analyst is a “specious” notion. I view the identity of the analyst as an experience of self that is constantly evolving. Each session the analyst spends with a patient contributes to that growth. The analyst over time becomes increasingly skilled at creating with the patient a new jointly constructed consciousness with which they dream the session together. The identity of the analyst emerges in the form of his or her unique way of being with his or her patients. It is this identity that the analyst relies upon as he or she creates an analysis with each patient.

The third assertion holds that I am abandoning the central tenets of psychoanalysis in the clinical examples I present. The idea that these illustrations all involve “transgressions” is precisely the idea for which I am trying to offer an alternative way of thinking. To my mind, the analyst must not be a slave to the “rules” and instead create a responsible, flexible style in which he or she is able to be human and humane in his or her practice of psychoanalysis.

No potential conflict of interest was