Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

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Interview with David Black by Alistair Ross - 23 rd October 2006
AR: So hopefully one or other of the microphones will pick up what we are saying. I
think the microphones are quite good
DB: they are very sensitive
AR: So I don't think you have to (laughter)
DB: I don't have to sit forward
AR: No I don't think you have to sit forward I think, or (pause) I'd like you to be
relaxed (laughter).
DB: okay (pause)
AR: As I said David some of these questions are, I'm trying them out in an actual
interview situation; I’ve tried them out
DB: yeah
AR: with colleagues and so on and it will be interesting to get feedback from today.
But uhm I imagine this process will take about an hour,
DB: right
AR: so
DB: yeah well I am free until, I ought to be, I will be free until 10 to 11 or something
like that I should think
AR: well I will, if it takes 45 minutes that's fine, if for instance it rolls on obviously
there’s the point where, uhm you'll have to say stop, uhm also if there’s a point at
which there’s something you said that for some reason you just don't want on the tape,
uhm just ask me, just indicate and I will stop them for that moment.
DB: right, yeah
AR: but I think the first question is really there about, its almost about, imagine you
talking to an interested but intelligent person who knows nothing about
psychoanalysis. How would you describe contemporary psychoanalysis to such a
person? It’s not meant to be an interview question, is not meant to be an exam
question but what are the strands that are vital and important for you and your work as
a…a contemporary psychoanalyst?
DB: I think the thing that’s developed, not radically changed but developed since
Freud’s day is probably chiefly that we are more and more aware of the uhm
sensitivity of the analyst and the need to make use of all our own responses to the
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