Ballet has always been a focal point of my life. As I child, I spent every waking hour at a ballet studio, listening to the piano and mastering movement, perfecting my technique. I loved the music, but mostly, I was passionate about the physical expression of that music, the translation of emotion to movement, and the continuous self-improvement that comes from learning that expression. “Once a dancer, always a dancer,” they say, and now, as a psychoanalyst, I continue to dance—only now my office is my studio, and the world of ballet has transformed into the intrapsychic performance of the mind.
For all the science backing up our profession, it is in every way an art form. There are a number of similarities between ballet and psychoanalysis, and my metamorphosis—from one art form to another—was, for the most part, a seamless transition. Who could have anticipated how my rigorous, though beloved, Russian ballet masters would prepare me so well not only to interpret music, but to interpret emotionality? My Russian born analyst had no small role in this as well.
To learn ballet requires extreme discipline, a competitive nature, a self-critical and perfectionist attitude, and the acceptance of suffering, both emotional and physical. A true dancer will be inherently hyperaware of both her body and her mind. My experience through ballet has afforded me a certain gritty resilience. Tremendous inner strength is needed both in the young dancer and in the analysand to endure the daily scrutiny of the body and the mind. The analysand’s constant introspection, while the analyst interprets, is akin to the ballerina’s hours spent in front of the mirror, every movement observed and critiqued by her ballet master. Before preparing me to become an analyst, ballet prepared me well to become an analysand.
Through artistic training, one develops many aptitudes—empathy, creativity, versatility, and acute listening, to name just a few—that marry well with psychoanalysis. The difference is, however, that in my psychoanalytic training, I had to learn to express myself and communicate with others using words, rather than movement. This took some practice. In my training as a clinician, I not only had to learn the English language, but the spoken language of emotion.
During our infant development, body language precedes the spoken word. Facial expressions, signaling, and pointing are used in our first dialogues. For me, that rudimentary body language further evolved into dance, even before I learned my native Spanish. Communicating through movement came much more naturally than the spoken word ever has. The finely tuned instrument that was my body could express the entire spectrum of feelings. I could evoke in my audience deep despair, delighted elation, or terrible fear. Learning the linguistics for these feelings required learning a new way to express myself.
In our work as psychoanalysts, we constantly listen for tone and timing, coherent or flat affect, as we work to tease out the unconscious from the conscious. This is not unlike distinguishing between notes on the piano. Though my steps are still guided by my auditory skills, my interventions are now verbal, rather than corporeal. But, there is artistry in both. I often think of my sessions as a dance between two people. It is at times harmonious, each taking turns at leading the other; at other times, the dance is more syncopated, requiring a particular effort and better communication. It is our dialogue with the patient’s unconscious and preconscious that makes psychoanalysis both creative and curative.
One of my favorite parallels between ballet and psychoanalysis is that both start with a great equalizer. In ballet, whether you are a beginner or a renowned star, you begin your day in the first position. In treatment, everyone, doctors and patients, starts their day with a handful of transferences. In our consulting room, we are two individuals trying to relate to one another, each experiencing the other within complex histories. The work continuously builds upon itself. Whether dancer or psychoanalyst, we build on what was accomplished the previous hour, the previous rehearsal. Muscle and emotional memory both take you back, each time, to where you were last.
Accomplished as I was, somehow dance ceased to be fulfilling. I could no longer sacrifice everything else for my profession. Having to choose between life and passion, I chose life, but in so doing, my heart turned beatless. To this day, my heart sinks when I hear the familiar strains of classical music. In trying to preserve my life outside of ballet, I instead took the life out of my heart. I often wonder what would have become of my life, had I kept up with my passion. Excruciatingly painful for me, I watched many of my closest friends, on both sides of the Atlantic, go on to become renowned dancers. From this heartbreak, I can relate to my patients: the sex addict chasing aliveness; the compensatory grandiosity escaping defeat, the regretful, and the resolute.
When dance is mastered, it is less a performance and much more a personal communication—one that transforms, informs, and confronts the aspects of oneself unknown until that moment. Similarly, effective treatment goes beyond words and symptom relief as one transcends to a sense of feeling understood, healed, empowered. Like connoisseurs of art, those who benefit from psychoanalysis are forever changed.
Similar in their deceitfulness as well, both professions manage to conceal hardship with apparent effortlessness. Inside the satin slippers are feet that have self-destructed; behind a calm interpretation lies an analyst struggling with her own intense transferential and countertransferential emotions. What appears to be an ethereal jump or a casual observation, is the fruition of countless hours of inner strengthening of body and mind.
One must always rehearse and study, but nothing really prepares you for live performances and live sessions. As much as one should study theory, at the end of the day we sit across from one another, never truly knowing what to expect—our patients depending on our ability to think on our feet and to be emotionally available to accept the wounds that walk into our office at any given hour: deprivation, humiliation, hollowness. This is the art of availing ourselves to the most delicate tenderness of another.
Every dancer’s first love is music. As it enters my ears, the sounds light up my brain and awaken my ever-present desire to interpret its meaning. Listening and responding are the internal mechanics for both dance and psychoanalytic treatment. We respond to what we hear—not only the words, but all the affect within the notes: the crescendo, the pianissimo, the fanfare. These components are mostly what help us differentiate the authentic from the defensive. The assimilated from the dissociated. We must listen so very carefully and allow ourselves to be affected by it, but just enough to be guided and not drowned. Technique, in both professions, is a constant work in progress. Yet, when performing, one should rely on technique only slightly, lest we become mechanical. Scripted. Technique must be readily available, and yet its presence unnoticed. Otherwise, it inhibits authenticity, the essence of the dance and of the therapeutic cure.
Regarding authenticity, I must add that no two dancers are the same, and this is equally true for analysts. Movement comes from the body, but dance comes from the soul. Much like the honesty that clinicians strive for in every session, genuineness is invaluable. Otherwise, words are just words, affect falls flat, and dance degrades to mere steps.
Our patients’ stories are unconsciously choreographed with old scripts that no longer work in their daily lives. We analysts become choreographers, seeking to preserve the essence of the person while composing and evolving their understanding of themselves into a fluid motion, one that better fits their current needs and desires. Much like choreographing a new piece with a dancer, our work as analysts is a collaboration between the change we know is needed, and the familiar to which our patients so desperately cling. Together, doctor and patient create a new vision for the way the patient sees herself—and the world. Versatility allows each of us to work with a wide range of characters and dispositions.
The greater the versatility in our personal character, the richer our practice becomes; in dance, a rich personal world allows for a wide repertoire of diverse characters.
Spending the better part of my formative years at the barre, I learned to understand movement and the compensatory motions made by dancers and non-dancers. Movement speaks volumes to me, and it whispers of my patient’s spirit as they make their way from the waiting room into my office. I am continually fascinated by the awkward positions patients assume as they settle in, the stiff, motionless postures. Ballet is based on symbolism, as are the ways in which the unconscious expresses itself.
A couple of aspects, though, are radically different. Most obvious is the contrast between movement and motionlessness and I often feel physically constrained to my chair. The most difficult contrast for me, however, has been trading self-expression with personal restraint. In the studio, I had complete freedom of expression during my daily class, and among the roles I interpreted, I could express and represent my full emotional spectrum. While who we are is revealed through our analytic work, how we feel is frequently contained. We aim for neutrality and are trained to utilize our feelings to mostly put them in the service of understanding our patients. The two professions are different in nature and purpose. Art is a vehicle for expression while psychoanalysis is one for understanding. Sublimation has its limitations and my private feelings remain mostly wordless, motionless.
While the career of a dancer is exceptionally short, and that of an analyst is particularly long, in both pursuits one grows continuously with each working hour. One is always a student of her craft, and there are limitless experiences to enjoy and knowledge to acquire. And that, from the first day I touched the barre, has been my passion.