Between Action and Inaction: The Space for Analytic Intimacy

Limits on Love: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Psychoanalytic Texts

“…Within the discourse, bigotry is repeatedly used as symbolism, engaged with as metaphor. As noted, Gentile’s 2020 piece uses Covid-19 as a representative of the “invader.” After describing a dream in which a patient “yell[s] contemptuously at an immigrant dressmaker with an accent,” Stanley Coen (2018) understands the content as an unconscious message that he, a Jewish man, “had pushed her away too much . .…”

“…Sometimes love was addressed as such directly. Reflecting on his family’s history, Coen (2018) asserts in his paper: “My patients deserved to be treated with respect, dignity, and love, certainly not to be misused, as they may have been, or as I may have been” (p. 321). Discussing the aims of a treatment, Irene Cairo (2017) references Harold Searles, stating, “If you can love your patient you’re probably doing the most you can, leaving him or her with the most you can when it ends” (p. 319).…”