Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Conscious encounter
The introduction recounts my initial experience of meeting with AN: however as I
interviewed him in context he seemed more natural, more contained and more settled even if
the subject had caused him some initial worry. As the interview developed I warmed to
AN’s candour. My experience was that he moved from a position of cautious, guarded
professionalism to adopt a more relaxed collegial stance. He very much focused on the task
of answering the questions asked and did not delve into other areas. At the end AN
acknowledged that he had asked me little of my religious background but perceived the
interview to have been ‘very facilitating … a very rewarding experience’ (AN 810-812) that
he had enjoyed and wished to have a copy of the transcript as he felt he had made some
important connections. This meeting felt like a robust encounter with someone who
appeared certain of his views and enjoyed the opportunity to express these, yet who was
willing to reflect on aspects of these in a new way.
Unconscious encounter
Forgetting is as an unconscious act and has assumed a significant place within
psychoanalytic thinking that Freud linked to repression. Early on in the interview I
mentioned that AN’s edited book on psychoanalysis included brief biographical data for
every contributor but not himself. AN responded that he was the editor and it simply had
not occurred to him. At the time I said I would not interpret this however I later was left
wondering what AN might be wishing to forget or even repress? Unlike some of the other
interviews that took place there was less to speak of in this specific interview that related to
the unconscious, or so I thought.
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