“Once Upon a Time …” Is a Good Start, But Once Is Not Enough: Commentary on Paper by Beatriz Priel

“Once passed, time leaves the imprint of its teeth …

Patients sometimes complain about the strangeness of psychoanalysis—unusual silences, unfamiliar questions, and unexpected observations by the analyst, even the analyst's close attention and neutrality. Strangeness like this can disturb or shock, but we persist with our method because life itself is stranger than ordinary ideas convey. Analysis reveals that even the most patently conventional, ostensibly rational projects hide threads of idiosyncrasy and irrationality. We see that “meaningless” experiences—symptoms, slips, and dreams—are cunningly disguised commentaries on the relation between the analysand's early life and contemporary reality. This complex temporality is implicitly expressed in actions toward the analyst and in thoughts and feelings about the analyst. Strangeness, one might say, is our stock in trade, and we are specialists in pointing it out.

Dr. Priel uses temporality to interpret a familiar sort of clinical case. I suppose that her strategem may be uncomfortably exotic for some readers, but I believe that analysts need a certain estrangement from the familiar just as much as analysands do. We need to be comfortable with strangeness for two purposes: (1) to infuse our professional effort with creative passion and (2) to keep us from feeling that our