The author explores "exile" as both a migratory and psychological phenomenon, with particular emphasis on it as a state of mind-one that, by virtue of the dissociative processes by which it is characterized, forecloses the (psychic) possibility of immigration. From this point of view, an exile is not simply one who cannot (physically) return; she is someone who cannot "remember" other versions of herself, who cannot bridge the gaps between versions of self rooted in disparate times, physical spaces and relationships, who cannot "stand in the spaces" between self-states. With a view of clinical process that forefronts dissociative phenomena in both patient and analyst/therapist, and their enactment in the therapeutic relationship, the author describes various forms of exile that emerged in working with his patient, Maria. He focuses on how, over time, the enactment of negation or "not-ness" (specifically, "not-Germanness" and "not-Jewishness") in the therapeutic relationship catalyzed recognition and negotiation of exiled self-states in both patient and therapist-self-states that could themselves be understood as refractions of transgenerational exile, rooted in the respective (and respectively denied) European heritages of both patient and therapist.
Though one could argue that the history of psychoanalysis is intimately linked with the experience of immigration, the fact is that psychoanalytic theorizing about this experience, and its implications for treatment, have lagged far behind, even as psychoanalytic theorists have increasingly examined other nontraditional topics, such as those having to do with culture, class, and race. In this article, we address several of the key issues that are relevant to a contemporary psychoanalytic understanding of immigration as a psychological experience, as well as the implications of this experience for psychoanalytic treatment when the patient, the analyst, or both are immigrants. In some areas, we also draw from literature outside of psychoanalysis in an effort to bridge and expand theoretical conversation with other disciplines. Among the topics and themes
Today's immigrants often have the twenty-first-century desire to maintain the cultural ideals and practices that their predecessors were eager to shed. This paper is concerned with psychoanalytic receptivity to these ideals and practices and, more abstractly, with the conception of cultural difference that informs psychoanalytic theory and practice. The author introduces a conceptual framework from cultural psychology to theorize differences in everyday practice, thought, feeling and relationship patterning across cultures. A case vignette contrasts three potential interpretive responses to a cultural practice that, while common around the world, is relatively unfamiliar to psychoanalysis. It is suggested that a pluralistic conception of difference facilitates modes of listening essential to psychoanalytic work across cultures. In addition, the author suggests that cultural psychology's pluralistic conception of difference may be useful to the psychoanalytic project of theorizing linkages between individual subjectivity, relational phenomena and culture.
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