How Can a Writer Describe the Deep Emotional Experience of a Psychoanalysis? “As One Forms One's Preconceptions of a Cathedral by the Height of Its Bell Tower”

This article is devoted to the importance of interpersonal and phenomenological perspectives in writing about an analytic relationship that can convey the emotional depth and intensity necessary for the analysis to be successful enabling the patient to alter her life. The writer should be able to describe the interactive experiences of the patient and analyst as two whole people motivated to create greater coherence to their experiences or how the analyst and patient have worked together to enable the patient to transform fragmented parts of his or her story into a narrative that can be told to the analyst. By using examples from a case conference on writing about what occurred in an analysis, I highlight some of the principles that are described in the article.

On the morning of May 22, 1853, Flaubert wrote to Louise, “The measure of a soul is the dimension of its desire, as one forms one's preconceptions of a cathedral by the height of its bell tower.” His greatest glory may have been to have created the vulgar, fickle, fictional figure of Emma Bovary, the best demonstration of this truth, one of the bell towers that dominate the vast flat plain of human existence. (Mario Vargas Llosa, 1986, describing Flaubert and Madam Bovary, p. xx)