Basseches: I know that you've worked closely with Ruth and Bryce Boyer. Can you tell us about that?
Sonnenberg: I was introduced to the Boyers by Aaron Esman, who knew of my interest in interdisciplinary research and applied psychoanalysis. I began working with them on The Psychoanalytic Study of Society early in 1991, and we quickly discovered a mutual enthusiasm for exploring the relationship between psychoanalysis and culture. I had been interested in psychoanalytic writing for many years and so from the outset was able to contribute to the editorial tasks connected with volumes 16 and 17. My previous interdisciplinary research, conducted with sociologists and political scientists, involved the study of war and its victims. But despite my readings I had never before had an ongoing dialogue with either a psychoanalyst who was truly sophisticated and expert in another field, or a person from another field, in this case anthropology, who was truly sophisticated with regard to psychoanalysis—let alone a team of two working together so intimately that in some ways their minds worked as one. So while I made a contribution as associate editor, much more than that, 1 learned an enormous amount by working with Ruth and Bryce. 1 got much more than I gave.
Basseches: And what did you get?
Sonnenberg: For the last ten years I have worked with a political scientist studying the U.S.-Soviet nuclear relationship. While much of that work involved archival and library research, much of it consisted of dialogue, often for several hours a week, between my collaborator and me. Early on, I had the feeling that the dialogue was vital to what we were learning, but 1 wasn't sure how. I did know that it was more than just the development of consensus about the facts, and eventually I realized that certain introspective experiences I was having as a result of my relationship with my colleague were leading me, and then the two of us, to new perspectives and new hypotheses. What the Boyers provided me was a framework and an intellectual tradition from which to view and understand that experience, and the courage to tell it like it is. They did this by teaching me about psychoanalytic anthropological fieldwork, in which the reciprocal influence between fieldworker and informant, and the introspective activities regarding that interaction, have been understood as critically important data.
Basseches: Do you have any thoughts about the relationship of applied analysis to the future of clinical analysis?
Sonnenberg: With the declining dominance of psychoanalysis as a treatment for mental disorders, analysts have become increasingly aware of the importance of reaching out in as many ways as we can to the health care and academic communities. One of the most important avenues is to develop ways of working together with scholars from other fields. That works best when we analysts recognize that our greatest contribution is not what we know about the other field, but how we can facilitate the work of an expert in that other field so that new discoveries are made. I think in many respects this is analogous to the way we facilitate discovery in the clinical situation. One of the Boyers' most important contributions is that they teach us that our clinical skills, when carefully employed and applied, are as useful in the university as they are in the consulting room.
Basseches: Thank you. It's been a pleasure to hear a sampling of your thoughts about the Boyers' work in applied psychoanalysis, and your own as well.
Stephen M. Sonnenberg, M.D., is coeditor of The Psychoanalytic Study of Society.