Contemporary discourse on self-disclosure frequently emphasizes enactment, dismissing the possibility of formulating effective guidelines for deliberate use. This perspective contradicts existing literature and raises ethical questions about both disclosing and withholding the therapist’s countertransference. The view that it is impossible to determine what or when to disclose due to the uniqueness of each dyadic relationship positions enactment as purer communication because it is unconscious and spontaneous. However, this stance is inconsistent with both case reports and empirical research on disclosure. This presentation examines overlooked aspects of the literature and challenges over-reliance on enactment, highlighting associated ethical dilemmas. Research findings on therapist disclosure, clinical examples, and evidence-based guidelines for its use will be presented.
Dr. Michael O’Loughlin has devoted considerable time in his writing to autobiographical exploration of his own subject formation and the complexity of his status as an exile from Ireland. He will begin by sharing excerpts from his writings—and particularly from an interview with his mother—illustrating the ancestral, sociohistorical, and emotional occlusions that lay the foundation for his being. Is it possible, Wiegman wonders, to tell a story that exceeds the boundary of the personal, and transcends “idioms of the ordinary” (p. 6)? Can we trouble our own lived experiences in ways that shed light on the sociopolitical formation of our subjectivities? He will link this work to a long tradition in hauntology and genealogy (e.g., Edward Emery, Avery Gordon, Abraham & Torok, Davoine & Gaudillière, Jacques Derrida, Haydee Faimberg, Anne Ancelin Schűtzenberger) that illustrates the sociohistorical constitutedness of subject formation. Nicholas Rand suggests provocatively that an analysis is necessarily “an analysis in absentia of several generations.” He will then move back to autobiography to situate his thinking about encountering the Other, confronting particularly the whiteness of his own racial formation, and the situatedness of that whiteness in both colonial and socioeconomic contexts. If, as Claudia Tate suggests, psychoanalysis functions “as a writing of the ethnicity of the White western psyche,” we have much work to do to unconceal these processes and work toward a more emancipatory and inclusive psychoanalysis. In his concluding section, he will explore the possibility of what Judith Butler calls “giving an account of oneself,” examining larger societal structures such as racialized capitalism and neoliberalism in subject formation, drawing particularly on Butler as well as Suely Rolnik and Achille Mbembe to invite discussion of how our work might enhance creativity, and the potential for freedom.
“Psyche” is the Greek word for soul, mind, or inner life. “Polis” refers to the city-state or political community—the shared public world. Joined together, psyche and polis evoke the inseparable relationship between the individual’s inner world and the social, cultural, and political worlds they inhabit. The creative individual and the community are necessary to one another, much like the soloist and orchestra in a concerto. Relational psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, in both their clinical and applied forms, place creativity, uncertainty, surprise, mutual influence, and co-construction at the ethical core of the analytic encounter. The relational ethos, however, need not remain confined to the consulting room. It may also be understood as a form of ethical action in the world: an assault on indifference, a defense of human dignity, and a means of fostering collective recognition and responsibility. Historically, the analytic dyad and the larger social world have often occupied an unequal playing field within psychoanalytic discourse. This three-hour seminar will consider what becomes possible when clinical ethics is extended beyond the dyad to encompass citizenship, community, political violence, and human rights. It will ask how psychoanalysts and psychotherapists may remain attentive to the singularity of individual experience while also recognizing the social conditions that shape psychic life.
