Every Tuesday morning, I sit at my dining room table—my office, or, in analytic parlance, my consulting room. Mug of coffee in hand, I wait for my APsaA group facilitator host to invite me into the Zoom room for our weekly one hour talking group. It is ten o'clock for me, lunch hour for most of the other 12 members. It is in this virtual space I have come to closely connect with people I would call friends and colleagues but have never met in person. It is here that I met Sheryl Silverstein, the candidate editor of TAP, who asked if I'd like to write a candidate piece. I chose to reflect on distance analytic training while living in a rural community during a pandemic.
I live in Boise, Idaho, a moderately-sized city (roughly 700,000 residents) in a state that has a predominantly Republican, conservative, religious demographic (although there are pockets of more liberal thought). No more than three practicing psychoanalysts live in Idaho although a larger population of mental health clinicians adhere to a psychodynamic model. Clinicians in the region tend not to support a deeper way of understanding therapeutic work and some do not realize it exists. “Isn't that Freudian?” “Do people do that anymore?” are questions posed by clinicians and patients alike. It shouldn't surprise anyone that practicing psychoanalytically in this locale feels isolating. No institute or analytic professional organization exists that would bring people together to learn, share ideas, grow, and stimulate creative thinking.
My fledgling interest in psychoanalysis was born in the 1990s while living in the San Francisco-Bay Area, a community that draws visiting scholars from around the globe, and is a hub of talented, leading-edge psychoanalytic thinkers, writers, and practitioners. Surprisingly, I relocated to Idaho in 2004. Over the past several years, I have felt an evolving sense of longing and need for the professional richness I left in San Francisco. This prompted me to enter analytic training in Seattle three years ago, an opportunity made possible by the institute's openness to a distance learning platform (and a short flight from Boise to Seattle).
Distance participants were the minority at my institute (before the pandemic). While training remotely has made it possible to become a psychoanalyst, there are barriers that distance learning poses to feeling fully involved in the process. Intimacy with fellow candidates develops and deepens not just by being in weekly classes together or discussing theories and clinical issues, but in learning about one another as people: our hobbies, family life, where we vacation, as well as our clinical endeavors. These opportunities to learn about one another occur during breaks in the hallway between classes, for example, on a brief walk outside to the food market down the block, or while standing in line at the coffee house next door waiting for an espresso. As clinicians living in the same mental health community (or adjacent ones), being able to refer patients to one another, or collaborate (working with a child while a colleague sees a parent, for example) can provide the basis for enjoyable relating. A deepening friendship often grows from there.
Living in the same city or region allows for a shared familiarity and common knowledge of community and culture, an implicit understanding of what is going on. This in turn contributes to a sense of belonging. Maintaining a sense of connectivity and belonging takes a lot more effort when those points of connection are missing.
When a group of candidates sit together around a table, the shared scent of the room, the noises outside on the street, the three-dimensionality of one another's bodies in the same physical space -all create a mutuality at the somatosensory level that is otherwise taken for granted, but contributes to a sense of cohesion and togetherness. This cannot be duplicated from behind a computer screen. When most of the candidates sit together in person, those who join remotely may feel a sense of otherness, and painful longings can be triggered.
On the other hand, a mutuality exists—the playing field feels even when no one can gather in person. For protection from Covid, everyone has retreated to office/home spaces where our meetings happen only in virtual “Zoom boxes.” While contact is limited, we are separate together. We are together in our isolation. Perhaps others feel frustrated; their desires to belong together in a tight community remains unmet. For me, the pandemic has eliminated that feeling of exclusion. At the same time, I feel sad for my cohort
Janelle Eckhardt, PhD, is a candidate in the adult training program and the child program at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute. She maintains a private practice in Boise and is clinical supervisor at the Washington University Medical School, Department of Psychiatry.
and the first-year candidates (my own institute included) across the nation and across the world who have not been able to meet in person, to enjoy gatherings where students mingle, perhaps with a glass of wine, learning about one another's aspirations and who we are outside our clinical roles. It's the beginning of cohesion. It has been difficult to develop a sense of the candidates who started their training this year, even though we meet for case conference on a weekly basis.
While my Idaho community of friends means the world to me, and quick access to outdoor life in the majestic mountains for skiing and hiking satisfies my love of nature, I now understand that living among others who speak the same language on a consistent basis is essential for my well-being.
Ironically aspects of my remote training have motivated me to do in-person training. I plan to close my practice doors, sell my house, and relocate to Seattle so I can be more involved geographically/locally as a member of an in-person analytic community.
I am not sure whether close personal examination through analysis/analytic training has clarified what truly matters or if the slowed pace and isolation of life during this pandemic has led me to this clarity, or both. I just know that not only do I want to become a psychoanalyst, but I want to flourish and thrive as one in a community with other like-minded professionals.