When the Political Becomes Personal: Introduction

As the world reels from ever more extreme instances of social and political upheaval, the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy set up a panel to explore how such large-scale historic events, unfolding in real time, could make their impact felt on the practice of clinical work. In other words, we wanted to analyze how, specifically, social trauma seeps into the intimate experience of a working analytic pair.

To penetrate the consulting room with these kinds of questions in mind, we asked presenters from three countries (Israel, South Africa, and Chile) to deconstruct a countertransference experience that was, in their view, braided with the sociopolitical, as well as with the relational and the intrapsychic. Of course, how could it be otherwise? But our interest was to get beyond such self-evident generalizations by looking closely at how these clinicians navigated the particulars of treatments conducted in settings riven by troubled times. In other words, we wanted to understand how they held the tension between the intimate and the global.

We did not include a U.S. presenter on this panel. But since the United States is trampling on human rights and norms of social decency with what can only be described as malevolent glee, this topic has also drenched the clinical work of anyone who calls the United States home. As these waves of social trauma multiply, making it ever more impossible to think, to stay emotionally open, let alone to act in the world, we sought to learn from our global colleagues who have walked that walk, and who bring back news from the front.

Following their discussions, we conclude with a brief essay that takes stock of what has been presented, and considers its implications for our field—and ourselves.