Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

esources that people have within them whether they are understood as ‘a life-force, god, an
internal object’.
Conscious encounter
Knowing AL only had an hour 373 I drove the early stages of the interview, which AL
seemed happy with, indicated throughout by making important verbal non-word responses.
When she did verbally respond it was very affirming to hear that my work and ideas as
given voice in the interview, were ‘fascinating’. This builds an empathic connection
allowing the interview to become a shared endeavour, a space that reveals a willingness to
engage in the task of creating something unique. At one point AL appears to take
responsibility for the result of the interview by asking if she is not giving detailed enough
answers. At another time, we both finished each other’s sentence simultaneously.
One of the enjoyable aspects of the interview is that AL has space to think, rather than it
being an opportunity to talk about an area of shared interest and language or to say things
that are important to the person for which the interview is a platform. AL free-associated
ideas, letting thinking and feelings emerge spontaneously precisely because for her this is a
new area and she is keen to discover where it goes. AL looked to me to help her answer the
questions, a role reversal where AL allows herself to not be in charge of the interview
locating me in the ‘expert’ position. Yet at the end AL had some names of other people to
follow up including AN and Salman Akhtar demonstrating her own knowledge of people
who could help. 374
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I had learnt from previous interviews that they could easily run on into a second hour.
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I would have liked to interview Akhtar: however he is based in Philadelphia, USA and could not be fitted
into a self-funded itinerary.
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