Paper Session B

11. Faith and Passion in Self Psychology, or,
Swimming Against the
"Postmodern Tide of Uncertainty"

Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program

Overview

Kohut’s writings are suffused with his understanding that the continued strength, resilience, and enduring relevance of psychoanalysis depends on its acceptance of uncertainty. However, acknowledging the need for uncertainty in a theoretical domain and being able to tolerate it in one's life are quite different matters. For some people, especially trauma survivors, the experience of uncertainty may be unbearable. To the extent that faith and passion lend a sense of certainty to self-experience, they may serve as highly effective antidotes for fears of the unknown.

This paper attempts to demonstrate that passion and faith often intermingle in analytic relationships in which the need to stave off uncertainty is very strong. The sexual passion that sometimes arises between analysts who are experienced as omniscient gurus and analysands who are experienced by them as faithful devotees is examined. It is suggested that these relationships may be attributable to a mutual need to regulate uncertainty.

A clinical example describes the self-psychological treatment of a middle-aged woman whose childhood traumas left her profoundly uncertain about her psychological survival. Her need to maintain faith in her previous analyst despite this analyst’s efforts to involve her in a sexual relationship is explored.

Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program