Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Personal ontology
JB’s ontology is shaped by late twentieth century radical European Marxist agenda allied to
a feminist vision loosely summarized as Critical Theory. The ideas of Marcuse’s Eros and
Civilization (1957) and the excitement of life as a student in Frankfurt 363 influenced her
identity and the components of her ontology: the importance of dialogue/dialectic; a
questioning of power structures; developing common humanity; and the personal
investment to put ideas into practice. For JB the development of being is related to eros, as
an expression of a driving desire within all humanity for embodiment and physicality,
vitally influenced by our attachments (both past and present) (Marcuse 1969).
At a personal level this ontology communicates in her evident desire to enjoy life - as a
proud mother she talked warmly about her son. JB also spoke about the growth of others
revealing a vicarious pleasure in their achievement and her part in that. Yet there are others
that JB clearly wants to distance herself from: ‘Big business’ and ‘Republican’ are
objectionable words in her vocabulary, as she amusingly reflected why she does not attract
clients from these groups. 364
Conscious encounter
Before the interview I was in some kind of awe of JB due to the creativity and breadth of
her thinking. I wondered whether I would be able to demonstrate a sufficient knowledge of
her work, feeling a little out of my depth. I realized that this had been an implicit
assumption in my preparation for interviews, I wanted to probe beyond ideas and be able to
363 Location of the Institute of Social Research.
364 Such a response chimed with an impassioned anti-Bush Republican exposition from Eigen when I joined
his study group earlier. Eigen and JB share in training cohorts of psychoanalysts in New York outside of the
restrictive confines of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (Kirsner 2000).
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