Studies + Considerations

I am spending the summer immersing myself in reading all things psycho. I came across a statement which, if you can get past the academic tone, provides a key interpretation of how the relational approach (which is what I'm studying) is divergent from classical psychoanalysis' emphasis on a one-person psychology.

"The relational-perspectivist approach I am advocating views the patient-analyst relationship as continually being established and reestablished through ongoing mutual influence in which both patient and analyst systematically affect, and are affected by, each other. A communication process is established between patient and analyst in which influence flows in both directions. This implies a "two-person psychology" or a regulatory-systems conceptualization of the analytic process. The terms transference and countertransference too easily lend themselves to a model that implies a one-way influence in which the analyst reacts to the patient. That the influence between patient and analyst is not equal does not mean that it is not mutual; the analytic relationship may be mutual without being symmetrical."

- Lewis Aron, A Meeting of Minds: Mutuality in Psychoanalysis

The author proceeds to develop this distinction between relational and classical (two-person vs. one-person psychology) as it pertains to intersubjectivity (the mutual awareness of what the other is thinking/feeling in a therapeutic environment and how this field of awareness affects both the patient and analyst). The quote above is a brilliantly distilled proposition which may seem commonsensical on first reading, but with a broader understanding of the history of psychoanalysis I can see how revolutionary a statement this is.

Swirl

I am trying (desperately) to avoid a "boy, it's been a wacky ride these last few months!" post. It certainly isn't for lack of things to talk about, news to update you with, opinions to confess/shout.

Thing is, I don't know who you are. Sure, I know there are some of you who are semi-regular visitors. There are others who happen upon this place by accident (via Blogger or StumbleUpon). There are also those who come here via Google searches, either via my name or - most likely - a book review (which admittedly I haven't done in, oh, a year or so *). And no, this isn't going to be a "Matt wittily evading accusations of being a lazy bastard by turning the camera on the reader" post.

I've been posting artsy stuff, writerly stuff, industry opinion stuff. I don't mind the randomness, so long as there's no fluff. I do mind the lack of output. I wish, for one, that I could post more photographs (which is to say, I wish I had a better selection of photos to post **).

It comes down to the fact that I've been working like a dog since May (note: this happens every year that I'm working on a SAW film). When I come out of these periods, I feel like Rip van Winkle: a little dazed, slow on the up-take. Whereas last year this time I started teaching, this time this year I am a student (part-time) †. I have a small (but good) feature and a small (but good and potentially controversial) TV show on my plate from now till February. If funds allow, I also hope to have an editor working with me on my novel, with an eye to approaching a publisher or self-publishing if that doesn't seem feasible ††. I'm collaborating on a musical.

My plate is full.

- - - 

* which isn't to say that I'm not reading or that I don't want to do any more book reviews. I'm reading a lot of non-fiction, thank you. Much of it either out of professional or academic interest. However, if only to improve my Google ranking, here's a quick book review of Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño: What the fuck was that? (ISBN-13: 978-0811217170)

** another casualty of working so much is my photography. I still have the same roll of film in my camera that I'd loaded in June. I think I've only taken 4 exposures since then. Of course, my cellphone camera gets all the fun these days, unfortunately.

† I will be continuing teaching, but for only two terms this year as opposed to three (which was exhausting and... exhausting)

†† It needs a new name, for one thing. And I know this is going to drive me up the wall more than any changes to the actual content of the book.

It Doesn't Need To Be This Way

I was having brunch in the Market with my friend, Lady B, whom I've known for over 10 years. We were talking about "life changes" (we both being close to 40). We got onto the topic of how her and I sometimes are conditioned to expect the worst.

"With the house, didn't you feel that, somehow, everything would inevitably go wrong and you wouldn't get it after all?" she asked.

"Yes!"

It was as if she had read my mind. We were eating palacsinta at a small Hungarian bistro.

We talked about this, because she'd felt the exact same way when she and her partner bought their house. She speculated, correctly in my estimation, that this mode of thinking - let's call it auto-tragic thinking - was the result of her and I coming from divorced families (the divorces or circumstances surrounding them being particularly destructive). The end-result, if not in all cases then certainly in ours, was that we were conditioned to expect gift horses to have mouth cancer and every silver lining to have a cloud moving in its way. Happiness was a pulled rug away from tragedy.

I thought about moments in my life - moments that everyone experiences - like applying for a job, asking someone out for a date. Moments where, realistically, we hope/aim for the best. The difference between the average person and people like myself and Lady B is that, in the event we don't get the job we hope for, in the event that special someone isn't interested in us, we tend to see it as a fateful inevitability; a symptom of a curse. Of course, we say to ourselves. Why should this be any different than any other time?

The subject clearly struck a chord for both of us.

"You expect it to be like in Carrie." she said in a follow-up email, discussing how we became conditioned to expect the worst. "You're at the prom, thinking that everything's turning around in your life and then suddenly you're covered in pig blood."

The best male equivalent I could think of was Laurence Harvey's character in (the original) The Manchurian Candidate; a tragic puppet whose fleeting tastes of freedom coincide with horrific end results.

So, no, neither Lady B nor I are cursed. Our houses have not fallen down or been taken away from us by a nightmarish bureaucracy. If anything we are only beginning to sense just how much re-wiring is necessary for us to see things clearly, without the faulty psychological infrastructure that led to us to believe that, indeed, the odds were stacked against us.

The mind is a frightening thing. This is why I read books and watch films which challenge my preconceptions. This is why I am lucky to have friends such as Lady B.