I started psychoanalysis at a moment when I was trying to run away from multiple things. Running away from one meant running towards another. I was stuck. I don’t feel like that anymore. In the last session I heard myself say: nowadays I’m not running away but always running towards. I now have more uninhibited self-expression. I don’t feel stuck, I’m simply ever-moving.
So, why do I continue psychoanalysis? That’s the wrong question; better to ask: what is the function of psychoanalysis for me today? The answer is simple. My analyst is someone whom I can talk to.
Don’t get me wrong, I have people around me who listen to me willingly. First and foremost my wife is always there for me. She’s all-accepting all the time. However, she’s an individual who has her own feelings. I can’t simply dump my internal state upon her without a filter. What I say is going to affect her. My feelings for another, even if transient and not acted on, would have a permanent effect on her and our relationship. Which means there’s always a fraction of things that I can’t really talk about with her.
There are friends with whom I can express my sexuality without any hindrance. With some I can be dumb and vulnerable and with others I can recklessly abuse drugs. With others still I can talk about my politics and the desire to literally cook billionaires in city squares and eat their flesh. I contain multitudes and each of them has someone to share it with. But the problem is that I usually need to be careful not to let one aspect bleed into another. I can’t say everything everywhere. These people are not fleeting passengers, they have a place in my life and their perception of me needs to be tended in one way or another.
This is the beauty of psychoanalysis. My analyst, although an important figure in my life, is basically a void. The analysis is the time and space where I can jump from one aspect to another and let the multitudes I contain express themselves freely. I can’t describe how freeing this is. Yet I don’t usually look forward to going into sessions since they make me feel dirty because of the things I express there. Still, from time to time I find myself excited for the opportunity to say something to another person, knowing that whatever I say will end up in /dev/null.