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"I believe that to be inspiring, we have to have conviction. Conviction is the central thing to me. Conviction about treatment itself, and conviction about the way that we do treatment. I saw two analysts at two different times of my life, and they were very different. They had very different theoretical backgrounds, but one thing they had in common was their conviction - the conviction in the idea that this treatment was going to help me have a richer life, and I found that inspiring. I found them inspiring. I think that sometimes, in the effort not to be indoctrinating, not to engage in logical positivism, not to be seen as authoritative, I think we can err in the direction of a relativism that doesn't allow us to have the full-bodied conviction that I think we need in order to inspire people to stay the course of treatment and candidates to stay the course of training."
Episode Description: We begin by considering how clinicians can be inspiring to their patients - in actuality, not just as transference figures. She emphasizes that at times one must be 'palpably steadfast' when taking a stance against patient's abusive inner objects. Sandra makes the point that the themes the analyst attends to are also born from their own psychologies, not just from the patients. She considers the position of 'passionate neutrality' and how that is always unreachable. She quotes at length from Rilke in his sense of being 'enriched by loss'. We discuss mourning and the importance of the emotions that surround it. Balancing suffering entails an abundance of curiosity, hope, purpose, and especially joy. Sandra finds that "joy can counter feelings of life being limited by our sorrows."
Our Guest: Sandra Buechler, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute. She is the author of Clinical Values: Emotions that Guide Psychoanalytic Treatment, Making a Difference in Patients' Lives which won the Gradiva award, Still Practicing: The Heartaches and Joys of a Clinical Career, Understanding and Treating Patients in Clinical Psychoanalysis: Lessons from Literature, Psychoanalytic Reflections: Training and Practice, Psychoanalytic Approaches to Problems in Living, Poetic Dialogues, Erich Fromm: A Contemporary Introduction and Languages of the Heart: Personal Essays on Poetry and Clinical Practice (Routledge, in preparation).
Recommended Readings:
Buechler, S. (1999). Searching for a passionate neutrality. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 35, 213-227
Buechler, S. (2010). No pain, no gain? Suffering and the analysis of defense. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 46, 334-354.
Buechler, S. (2021). Empathy with strangers: Personal reflections. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 57:3-4, 446-472.
Buechler, S. Shattered Illusions of a retired psychoanalyst. Paper presented at the IARPP conference in Valencia, Spain, June 16, 2023.
Baer, U. (2005). The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke. Modern Library.
Rilke, R.M (1934). Letters to a Young Poet. Norton.
Seiden, H. (2016). The Motive for Metaphor: Brief Essays on Poetry and Psychoanalysis. Karnac.
