Harold and Maude in the Clinical Hour: Introduction

In the following essay, Dan Quinn's creative use of film—emerging from the author's reverie about his patient—clinically echoes Giuseppe Tornatore's description of how an idea comes: “… with simplicity and clarity which, from that moment on, will guide you toward the focus of that idea, giving you the strength to shape it and make it real.” Quinn brings us into the complexity and intimacy of the consulting room as the analytic couple grapples with the spectre of loss, anticipatory grief, and the enduring presence of Thanatos in the patient's life. He explores the question: “How does death's lure function in the psyche, and in the analytic process?”, drawing parallels between the positive function of Thanatos and the unique love story depicted in the 1971 film Harold and Maude. Quinn's spontaneous recollection of Harold and Maude deepens the clinical encounter as they begin to piece together her “feelingful” story in ways that bear a resemblance to Thomas Ogden's (2007) “talking as dreaming,” “a form of waking-dreaming in which the patient can begin to dream formerly undreamable experience” (p. 575). Like Harold and Maude, Quinn and his patient reimagine the central themes of life and death as they live through their own analytic adventure, with Maude's integration of death as a prospective dream and guide. Seamus Heaney once remarked that “in cinematic terms, [some poems are in] close up whereas other poems are in long shot.” Quinn writes from both perspectives as he weaves together clinical and theoretical material informed by Jung's relationship to death and the fertile process of loss. Their shared process embodies Jung's (1915/2009) observation that “If we still want to overcome death, then we must enliven it” (p. 244).