THE COST AND VALUE OF FREEDOM. PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON RELATIONSHIP AND SOCIAL PROCESSES

Abstract

Abstract. The clinical illustration presented in this paper should be viewed in the special context of the present, in the context of war in Ukraine. Current traumatic experiences bring past memories to the forefront – the patients’ and psychoanalysts’ re-experiencing of the past. In this way, the horrific past of individuals and entire nations resurfaces as a present reality. The tragedy of individual and collective traumas amplifies in their mutual reinforcement and repetition. It is a traumatic history affecting both our ability to think and our very existence: the history of psychoanalysis bringing together two people in their longing for freedom. In his foreword to the Ukrainian edition of Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works, Thomas Ogden writes about trauma’s ontological dimension and its correlation with the need of rebuilding a shattered life: “I believe that trauma is essentially an disruption to the individual’s ability to be and become someone. The traumatized person not only has to strengthen their defenses – they also suffer a diminished or destroyed sense of being alive, depending on the trauma’s severity”. This view on both the patient’s and the psychoanalyst’s personal stories, as well as on the history of our community, allows for a new perspective on these stories. It is this different, new, “creative reading” that becomes the ultimate goal of this and other therapies. This view of the psychoanalytic relationship is consistent with Donald Winnicott’s ideas about the true Self as the fulfillment and recognition of individual’s ability to be fully present in their own life. The restoration of “being and becoming” potentials as well as presence in one’s own existence, is always a painful journey of becoming a subject and, probably, one of the most valuable experiences of psychoanalysis. The psychotherapeutic relationship presented in the proposed research changed not only the patient’s life, but also the psychoanalyst’s view of her life story and the history of her country.