Mortality, Integrity, and Psychoanalysis (Who Are You to Me? Who Am I to You?)

Bibliographic Data

ID9230754
AuthorsEllen Pinsky (Faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute., corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume83
Issue1
Pages1-22
Publication date2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Psychoanalytic Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-2828 • E-ISSN: 2167-4086
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/j.2167-4086.2014.00074.x
PMID24470362
OpenAlexW2067308753
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited14

The author narrates her experience of mourning her therapist's sudden death. The profession has neglected implications of the analyst's mortality: what is lost or vulnerable to loss? What is that vulnerability's function? The author's process of mourning included her writing and her becoming an analyst. Both pursuits inspired reflections on mortality in two overlapping senses: bodily (the analyst is mortal and can die) and character (the analyst is mortal and can err). The subject thus expands to include impaired character and ethical violations. Paradoxically, the analyst's human limitations threaten each psychoanalytic situation, but also enable it: human imperfection animates the work. The essay ends with a specific example of integrity

Character (mathematics) · Epistemology · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Vulnerability (computing) · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications · Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy

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