It is thirteen years after. Almost to the day. I do not know when you will be reading this post, but I am writing it on the eve of. The eve of the event that changed everything for many of us. Strange to look out my window and see the beams of light knowing what […]
A good belly laugh can change the mood, tone and connection to an other in an instant. Teasing or joking with someone can invite them into a space to play with something in a different way. I have noticed that in my clinical practice, the ability to tease or joke with my patients about a […]
Recently, in the ongoing supervision group that I have belonged to for almost 20 years, there ensued a discussion about working with younger patients, and whether we were speaking a different language. My colleagues and I all felt a generational gap, and wondered together whether we had finally taken up the language that our parents […]
In my work as a psychoanalyst, I often think that none of us can avoid the fingerprints of our early history, the particulars of who our parent(s) and/or caretakers were and how their distinct elements shaped us, the specific interactions that molded our relational self. We cannot avoid it, nor would we want to. Our […]
Ever have the experience of hearing something you said but in a different context? Listening to your words yet feeling like something is not quite right? It may be that the actual words are not quite the same, or that they are said in a different tone of voice or affectation, or tweaked so that […]
Recently I was interviewed regarding the aftermath of trauma and its impact. I was asked about memory and whether people’s recollection of traumatic events is accurate and factual. This got me thinking about facts and reality, are they the same? Does a fact constitute reality? The word fact comes from the Latin factum originally meant […]
I am interested in language in every possible sense of the word: the language we speak, as well as implicit communication-the language of emotions, the language of the body, the language of movement, the language of art. We communicate in many different ways, and as a psychoanalyst I try to pay attention to as many […]
As someone who believes in the talking cure, based on words that try to capture inner experience, think it through, re-narrate it based on personal history, and share the entire process with another, in the context of a relationship, I have always thought that there is something magical about words and what we can do […]
Poetry seems to access emotions through words. Poetry moves language beyond its daily use, shifting it beyond itself to the language of emotion. Much like music and art, poetry speaks to us in a direct and most personal way. I originally wrote this poem in Spanish, years ago. Here it is below, in both English […]
I have been thinking about emotions and feelings lately, and about how differently people respond to them. There are those people who treat their emotions and feelings as valuable sources of information, considering them like their third eye or ear, a personal route to felt, implicit knowledge. Such people approach their feelings with a sense […]