Dancing with the Unconscious

The Art of Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalysis of Art

Danielle Knafo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136951336
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychoanalysis
• Index: Psychology

In writing and lecturing over the past two decades on the relationship between psychoanalysis and art, Danielle Knafo has demonstrated the many ways in which these two disciplines inform and illuminate each other. This book continues that discussion, emphasizing how the creative process in psychoanalysis and art utilizes the unconscious in a quest for transformation and healing. Part one of the book presents case studies to show how free association, transference, dream work, regression, altered states of consciousness, trauma, and solitude function as creative tools for analyst, patient, and artist. Knafo uses the metaphor of dance to describe therapeutic action, the back-and-forth movement between therapist and patient, past and present, containment and release, and conscious and unconscious thought. The analytic couple is both artist and medium, and the dance they do together is a dynamic representation of the boundless creativity of the unconscious mind. Part two of the book offers in-depth studies of several artists to illustrate how they employ various mediafor self-expression and self-creation. Knafo shows how artists, though mostly creating in solitude, are frequently engaged in significant relational proceses that attemptrapprochement with internalized objects and repair of psychic injury. Dancing with theUnconscious expands the theoretical dimension of psychoanalysis while offering the clinician ways to realize greater creativity in work with patients.

Part 1

The Art of Psychoanalysis

Chapter 1

Dancing with the Unconscious

The Art of Psychoanalysis¹

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.

—Angela Monet

Begin with a room, its four walls displaying a few choice prints, evocative images that perhaps speak with artistic subtlety to the room's singular purpose. It is a room with a view, less to the outside than the inside, a room prepared for a human encounter like no other. Within this room two people will dance, not with hands and feet, but with voice and soul. Moving with faith through the ballroom of the unknown, they will make up the steps as they go along, guided by currents of unconscious thought that ebb and flow between them. As the dance unfolds in imagery and sound, in memory and meaning, in desire and suffering, their aim is to suspend disbelief, judgment, and censorship in order to invite life to speak from its deepest recesses. Ideally, this dance will not end in stillness but in self-awareness and transformation.

This dance will employ three forms of unconscious expression unique to analytic work: free association, transference–countertransference, and dreams. All bear an important relationship to art, and all require a creative response on the part of the analyst. In the course of our discussion we will see how all three function creatively and how the analyst employs them in the art of the psychoanalytic dance.

FREE ASSOCIATION

When a patient speaks to the analyst in an atmosphere of safety and trust about “whatever comes to mind” in a stream of free associations, he or she is expressing thought and meaning that is largely woven together and determined unconsciously. Such content, against which the patient may be defended, is the hidden narrative that nurtures the dialogue, keeping it alive and moving it forward. Bollas (2009) calls the “momentum” gained from free association's serial logic, “an intrinsic connective reasoning” (p. 4). In turn, the analyst listens to the patient with an “evenly hovering attention” or, as Freud (1912/1958b) said, the analyst “should withhold all conscious influences from his capacity to attend, and give himself over completely to his ‘unconscious memory’ … He should simply listen, and not bother about whether he is keeping anything in mind” (p. 112). The analyst's rarified, nongrasping listening puts consciousness in brackets while heightening unconscious receptivity to the secluded, disguised, or inaccessible dimension of the patient's communications. The analyst listens for what thus far has remained silent. It is listening for the voice of the other who is denied; who has been rendered silent; and who can speak only in the language of the body, affect, symbol, or action.

Theodor Reik (1948) called this receptivity “listening with the third ear,” or “perceiving what has not yet been said” (p. 17). Anton Ehrenzweig (1967) referred to a similar “apperception” when he spoke of being able to grasp “the hidden order” of things. Such listening establishes the basis for connectivity, not only among the disparate thoughts of the analysand, but also between the analytic couple. Ogden (1997) has written about the analyst's states of reverie as corollaries to the patient's free associations. In his reveries Ogden believes he taps into something crucial occurring between him and his patients as well as into his ability to use what emerges to guide him in the treatment. This bidirectional connectivity thus allows transmission and reception while encouraging continued and deepening exploration. The analyst is often right there with the patient in a state of openness and unknowing, and she allows links to form on their own without yet applying the shaping force of analysis. Both the analyst and the analysand are like the artist who, in the act of creation, always stands on the threshold of the unknown.

Partnered with the listening analyst, the patient speaks about whatever comes to mind. As the analyst suspends the urge to listen with the aim of immediate construction and analysis, the patient suspends the need to adhere to an agenda, or tell an interesting story, or make a point, or follow any specific logical form ordinarily found in ordinary speech. The patient freely associates; that is, he allows one thought to follow another in a stream of internal monologue, speaking unreservedly about the reflections and feelings that demand voice. This partnership ideally allows the unconscious to become known. What is hidden and yet driving what is apparent can now begin to permeate the dialogue. This movement is itself the transformation of understanding in both parties. At its best, it is the literal and gradual integration of disparate and cut off aspects of embodiment.

The sequential, yet nonlinear and sometimes seemingly contradictory thinking that characterizes free associations is a central component of creative thought. Albert Rothenberg (1990) names this “Janusian thinking” and explains how it shapes the ability to perceive relations among things where such connections might not otherwise be perceived. The content of free association, like the content of creative thought, emerges from the multiple meanings and affective perspectives embodied as memory, trauma, and knowledge. Of course, theory guides the linear and logical interpretation and reconstruction of the deeper and continuous meanings that tie together seemingly discontinuous and disparate associations. Surrealist artists were quick to notice the creative potential of associative thinking, and they incorporated its methodology into specific artistic techniques, such as automatic writing. James Joyce is an early example of a writer who replaced linear storytelling with stream of consciousness as form and content of the novel. Today, it is well known that creative thinking entails at least partial withdrawal of judgment and censorship, as well as the ability to make links not immediately apparent to reason or logic (Arieti, 1976). In working associatively and teaching the patient to do so, the analyst invites creativity into the sessions, the kind that creates personal movement and “new being.”

TRANSFERENCE-COUNTERTRANSFERENCE

If free association functions as a highly compact creative language that contains multiple perspectives and meanings within the patient's unconscious, transference unconsciously expresses that embodiment in action and within the relationship. The patient will naturally enact and repeat (early) relational patterns within the therapeutic context, and the analyst will function as a living screen and a dynamic container for the issues or wrongs the patient needs to redress. At the same time the analyst will help the patient apply a therapeutic and transformative perspective to what occurs. In doing this, the analyst naturally comes into the relationship with her own transferences. Because the transference relationship is bidirectional and co-created, it functions as a malleable context within which layers of identifications, projections, enactments, and symbolizations can come to light and be explored and worked through. What this means is that the relationship itself becomes the means by which the patient and analyst grow and are transformed.

Transference–countertransference is the unknown, delimiting factor in the therapeutic relationship. As with any relationship, it is what ultimately determines the quality of the work. But here the analyst is very much in the dark. No one can know the extent of her own transference with regard to a specific individual. Because transference–countertransference involves the relationship between two unconscious minds, it is the most unknown and exciting aspect of the work. “It is a very remarkable thing,” wrote Freud in 1915, “that the unconscious of one human being can react upon that of another, without passing through the conscious” (p. 194).

The transference is creatively handled by allowing the relationship to flow and change, by guiding, through free and spontaneous dialogue, the growing insight of the patient, and by becoming aware of the multiple transference dimensions arising in oneself. This process requires that the analyst engage multiple meanings while taking on multiple identities—a highly fluid process fraught with potential difficulty and requiring a loosening of boundaries between the self and the other, between what is inside and what is outside. Such boundary fluidity (though often not smooth) is a hallmark of creativity, where the artist extends his notion of self to take on other identities, and explore and step into alternate realities. Ogden (1994b) speaks of the third analytic space that is created between the analyst and analysand, a space that moves them both beyond the boundaries of their limited selves and experiences. Winnicott (1971a) introduced the concept of play in analytic encounters that takes place in this third, potential, space—the space of creativity.

DREAMS

Dreams are perhaps the most direct communications of the unconscious mind. Freud (1900/1953b) used the dream as the model for all unconscious mental experience. Like graphic artworks, dreams employ an economy of visual expression to articulate our inner lives. Dreams occur prior to the intervention of conscious thought and frequently present themselves as riddles to consciousness. Often the more incoherent dreams appear, the greater their revelatory value, for the condensation of their symbolism contains a world of meaning. Clearly, creative processes underlie both dreams and art. The creative aspect of working with dreams involves the art of interpretation, which includes asking the questions that will lead the analytic couple deeper into the dream's hidden meanings.

When working with dreams the analytic couple interprets an intimate and mysterious language, because buried in the dream may be the repressed memory, the hidden fear, the gnawing anxiety, the destructive assumption, or the quivering hope, the silent courage, the astonishing insight, the unseen solution. The dream is less governed by theory, censorship, or convention than by conscious thought. But more than a site of repressed content, the dream unites layers of memory, imagination, and desire, and crucial elements of our psychic life are encrypted in its architecture. Freud (1900/1953b) famously stated that “the interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind” (p. 608).

Dreams, like free associations and transference, are bidirectional in nature. They express unconscious thoughts as well as our attempts to modify and understand them. When dreams engage the analysis—and, among other things, dreams reported while in analysis are doing just that—analytic work gains the power to counteract or undo repression, to expand the limitations of our conscious minds, and to unite with the other in a profound and multidimensional encounter.

Following is a session that illustrates the raw, creative power of the dream as well as the creativity needed to mine some of its meanings. Additionally, the session incorporates free association and transference. In this case, we bear witness to the dance between two (conscious and unconscious) minds. Although many (e.g., Fenichel, 1939; Loewald, 1960/1980) have written about the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis, it is also important to attend to the creative action that takes place in analytic work. As demonstrated here, creative action is therapeutic action. Part of the artistry involves the ways in which the dream's meaning and context are brought into being. It may look simple, but it is often a subtle, quiet aspect of technique.

By including minimal information about the patient I aim to focus on the session itself. (For more on this case, see Knafo, 2006.)

DANCING WITH DEATH

Ana was a 29-year-old male-to-female transsexual when she sought help for the first time. Significantly, Ana's birth was the result of a rape. At the beginning of treatment Ana physically appeared as a man and was married to a woman. She claimed to utterly hate her maleness and felt that she was a lesbian trapped in the body of a man. By the end of her 4-year treatment, Ana was a woman living with a man, referring to herself as an “omnisexual.” The following session was the third in Anna's treatment and the first dream she shared with me. Consciously Ana was wholly resolved about going through the transition from male to female and claimed to have no conflict about her decision, as she simply wished to rid herself of everything male. The dream work that took place in the session reveals the many layers of unconscious meaning regarding this life-altering decision. The session is interspersed with an amalgam of my initial reactions and later analysis, in italics.

ANA: [Enters and approaches my office window] So you do have a view! It is difficult coming here with the gym across the street. My body will never be as pretty as a woman's … I had a dream fragment. It came at the end of a series of dreams.

I already sense this session will be profound. What tells me this? She begins with her hope for a view as well as her despair. I have a view. She believes I have a view. Perhaps in this room she, too, will have a view. The opening lines of a session are like the opening theme in a concert; they will be repeated with variation throughout this session and those that follow it. I have a perspective that she lacks. Like the women in the gym, I also have the woman's body that she lacks. I feel the gentle urge to move with her, to let her lead me inwardly as I lead her outwardly. The dream yet unspoken electrifies the air between us.

DK: Tell me what you remember.

ANA: There was a group of people. I was with a school group. We went to see … It wasn’t clear where we were going. We went to one place where they were going to have a public execution. I’ve never seen one.

I listen to her and allow my associations to flow with her narrative. She has come to see something she has never seen before. Again she uses the language of vision. She dreams to see. She has brought me a dream to see, and she has perhaps brought me a dream that sees. Someone will be executed. We will see who and how and perhaps even why.

ANA: It's strange, but it's as though I thought, society does this, takes kids to see a public execution. There was a woman there, sitting in a chair. You could see her face. She is as far as you are from me. She is thin, with thin features, forlorn, long, dishwater grayish-brunette hair, and very sad eyes.

Ah, we dance now in the embrace of the transference. She is saying something about us, about the distance between us, the distance we are closing: “as far as you are from me.” The dream incorporates the analysis. It refers to the analysis. It is meant at least partly as a communication to the analyst.

ANA: And she sat there and the group came around. And the executioner people were fitting her, taking a noose and adjusting it. I couldn’t figure out how this process would work, taking vital signs.

How does this process of treatment work? What is its execution? What is happening here, and how does it correspond to what is happening within her? I let go and trust the movement.

ANA: No one was talking to this woman. She was there all alone with no one to comfort her, only to watch her die. It became clear that she wasn’t going to get executed at that spot. They were going to move her, and the group wouldn’t see it. So, the group that came with me moved, went for coffee. But I felt that wasn’t appropriate to just let a person die and no one make contact with her. I felt empathy for that person. So, I went up to her, looked at her. She was troubled.

As she speaks I begin to see and feel her loneliness. The woman is being moved from “that spot” and will be executed elsewhere. A position must be relinquished in order for the execution to occur. This may refer to the future surgery and the therapy as well. Ana is with the group and yet is uncomfortable with it. Ana is separating from the group, feeling empathy for the woman, moving closer to what is so hard to face. As she does so I am called to enter her dream more deeply, to dream with her.

ANA: I asked, “How are you?” She didn’t say a lot. She was depressed.

Ana does not yet know that it is perhaps she who is depressed. She believes she is just fine with her decision.

ANA: She knew she was going to be killed and wasn’t going to say anything. But she looked at me and felt comforted and cared for. Someone from this world condemning her cared enough to talk to her, knowing this person was condemned.

I savor that image of comfort and care, feeling she is talking about the therapy. We are joined to witness an execution. We are joined in being executed ourselves. Together we are executing a process of revelation.

ANA: She looked at me knowingly. She knew I knew she’d be killed. [Ana looks at me knowingly.]

Sometimes the dance moves so beautifully the two become as one. Where does the dream end and where do we begin? I deeply sense but do not yet fully know what is here to see. As I dance with ana she dances with that figure who seems not to dance at all but sits trapped in a chair awaiting execution.

ANA: This is what a person feels at the end of their life. There's nothing more that they can do. There's a recognition they have, and they can look at your life and think: you’re so young and won’t be anymore. She looked at me and said something like, “I feel cold.”

I quiver at this insight. She is leading me into my own fear, the fear of annihilation, the radical solitude which results from the awareness “I will die,” an awareness that leaves us with nothing except the feeling of cold.

ANA: Nothing more expressive. I noticed she was holding something in her hand. She looked at me and handed it to me. It was an empty cassette, a tape box. There was a liner on it, but no tape. It was as though they grabbed her and this was the last thing she could hold onto. So this was it. And she realized what she held was nothing. But she handed it to me and I said, thank you.

How the dream speaks of ana's dilemma. The dream figure hands her an empty tape cassette. She...