Writing can feel intimidating for many. Here, Christopher Bandini, LCSW, discusses some common anxieties about psychoanalytic writing and, given the opportunity, the unique contributions clinicians can make.

 

It’s a compelling, dramatic situation: two people sitting in a room, one unveiling their secrets and history to the other, known in some ways and not known in others. Who are these people? How long have they known each other? What will happen next in their relationship?

There are reasons why the psychotherapeutic encounter appears in so many books and films.

As therapists we love to hear people’s stories, but we don’t always feel we know how to tell them, or we wonder if our experiences will contribute to our profession or if our colleagues will have an interest in them. Hasn’t it all been said before? But the therapeutic dyad is unique. The work that each of us do with our patients is singular, and it is through writing and presenting our work that we share with the world what we do, what works and sometimes, more interestingly, what does not.

Many clinicians who wish to write feel unsure of where to start. Do they need a theoretical breakthrough or a new way to work with a particular population? Neither is necessary. We have our abundance of case material and this is the best way to start and the way to draw in our prospective reader.

Even at the beginning of psychoanalysis, Freud’s most interesting writing was about his patients; Ferenczi and others continued this tradition. One of my personal favorites, Sullivan’s “Treatment of a Young Male Schizophrenic” (1976), a lengthy description of his supervision with a group of young psychiatric residents, remains compelling to this day – and more so because of commentary that was added 25 years later by the participants in the original seminar!

In addition, we have at our disposal more than 100 years of clinical writing, some of it good, some brilliant, and some problematic. If we read with a discerning ear towards writing, we find writers that resonate with us.

With the coming of the relational turn, the experience and presence of the analyst moved to the forefront of clinical thinking. Writing emphasized self-disclosure, countertransference reactions, and enactments, all naturally fascinating dimensions of psychoanalysis that easily engage a potential reader. The writings of contemporary authors such as Mitchell, Aron, Davies, Slochower, Hirsch, and Buechler, to name just a few, are more personal, revealing, and honest than ever before. The writing has a freshness and humanity that was mostly lacking in previous decades, where many authors focused on abstract theoretical discussions or how the application of a specific interpretation or technique demonstrated the superiority of the author’s metapsychology.

We are fortunate to live in a time with a wealth of stellar writing as well as access to a large historical database of psychoanalytic literature at PEP-Web. Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Contemporary Psychoanalysis are just two examples of journals making excellent analytic writing available with each issue. By reading, we can begin to identify what works for us and we can emulate the styles that we are drawn to. I don’t view this as imitation or plagiarism, but rather a way of finding our own writing voice.

We are now free to write about whatever subjects might strike us as clinically relevant, and there is room for different voices and diverse points of view. In the writing groups I have led, topics have been wide-ranging, from the impact of gender, race, and culture on treatment to the use of texting to reasons for abrupt terminations. Many participants begin with one paragraph, then with the support of the group and a regular presentation schedule they work towards an article that could be submitted for publication or presented at a conference. 

Participants often struggle with establishing a regular writing schedule, juggling priorities, or feeling blocked at some point in the writing process. Being in a group can be helpful, as other members, myself included, are no strangers to these challenges.

Ideas lead to other ideas, so that subsequent articles become a real possibility. I think as clinicians we should all attempt to write, that we all have something interesting to say and something important to contribute.

 

Interested in psychoanalytic writing? Join Christopher Bandini, LCSW, for his upcoming course, “Introduction to Writing a Psychoanalytic Article,” Saturdays, February 1 & 15, 10:30 am-12 pm, and Saturday, February 29, 10:30-11:30 am.

$120; $80 for candidates
4 CEUs for NYS social workers

Learn more and register HERE

 

Christopher Bandini, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. A graduate of the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, he teaches and supervises at several psychoanalytic institutes. He is also one of the hosts of the podcast New Books in Psychoanalysis.

 

References

Sullivan, H. S. (1976). A harry stack sullivan case seminar: Treatment of a young male schizophrenic. R. G. Kvarnes & G. H. Parloff (Eds.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

 

 

 

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Letters to a Young Analyst by blog co-editors Justine Duhr, MFA, & Robert Levin, LCSW
MIP’s Licensure Qualifying Program and the History of Lay Analysis by Chaim Bromberg, PhD