Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

conversation he encouraged my work and thought that it was necessary, as he felt very
much like a pioneer or lone voice at times. Benjamin also agreed to be interviewed in New
York. I was also familiar with the work of Jones, who also agreed, as did Rubin as I was
keen to interview someone from a Buddhist background. I did not know until the interviews
that Eigen and Jones used to be neighbours, that Rubin had been talking with Eigen and
Benjamin that week, that Jones was publishing something for Eigen and that he had been in
contact with Rubin. All of them at some stage had been in contact with Mitchell, which
illustrates the complexity, the smallness and relationality of the psychoanalytic world, for
good or for ill. 501 It can be difficult to be in dialogue when at the heart of a tradition or
system of thought, belief or practice so much is invested in sustaining the enterprise – one
reason for the isolation and authoritarian nature of many psychoanalytic institutes (Kirsner
2000, 2001). Locating oneself in a transitional or liminal space allows new possibilities,
movements or evolutions to occur. ‘I’m … a fellow traveller with psychoanalysis … what I
call creative marginality … finding myself on the boundary and finding a way hopefully to
use it somewhat constructively is something that’s continued through my life (JJ 1289-
1293).
What clearly emerges in the interviews 502 - but less so in a thematic narrative analysis - is
the distinctive personality of each psychoanalyst. They cannot be labelled, a particular fear
that was expressed by most interviewees, but rather, they can be experienced.
Psychoanalysis is therefore a set of interwoven ideas and powerful personalities that speak
to the heart of being human, the very self with its past in the present and the future.
501
Kirsner examines this in detail and notes the powerful dynamics to do with conformity – long an Achilles’
heel of psychoanalytic life (Kirsner 2000).
502
Discussed in chapters twenty-one and twenty-two.
297