Lindsay Snow, PhD

@darrenhabermft Way to go! Congratulations to you :)

Routledge has accepted the manuscript of my new book, on language and the complications of therapeutic dialogue. :)

- that is, proceeding without considering how working in this way may affect the patient whose facility in this area is not as well developed as the analyst's.” - Robert Grossmark, The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst

“In our contemporary psychoanalytic climate, "omniscience" and "omnipotence" can come in many other forms, including an unexamined tendency to proceed as if discussing the ongoing interaction in the moment is always a good idea…

— Michael Parsons Living Psychoanalysis, “The Analyst’s Countertransference to the Psychoanalytic Process”

“In psychoanalysis, the fact of an ending is known but its location is not. Neither analyst nor patient can envision how far away it is, or what it might look like when it arrives. Both have to be willing to enter deeply into an engagement about which the only certainty is —…”

Desire is evil and illusory, yet without desire we should not seek for that which is truly absolute, truly boundless. We have not experienced it. Simone Weil Gravity and Grace

"...our childhoods leave in us stories... stories we never found a way to voice...When we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us-we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find outselves acting in ways we don't undersand" p10 Grosz (2013)

"I suppose I saw my job as coaxing them into the pleasure of talking...It wouldn’t be simply, you’ve come here to have a terrible conversation so you can get better, but instead what might be the pleasure or use of actually talking to somebody." interviewmagazine.com/literature/ada…

@JayceLong Me, reviving the spirit of my multi-denominational upbringing at the institute

The deeper I go into psychoanalysis, conflicts w/ other modalities feels trivial. Our internal disputes have been intense & going on from the start. Freud v Jung, Freud vs Ferenczi, Freud v himself, A Freud v Klein, Kernberg v Kohut, Benjamin v Orange, Lacanians v everyone else…

“…I believe that time, loss and mourning are intrinsic parts of every analysis from beginning to end. Every patient must learn to mourn what she did not have, what she is not, and what she never will be. Every analyst must mourn what he cannot accomplish in the treatment and…”

Words spoken cannot be assumed to be truth, even when they are repeated many times and are believed by many people. They are truth when we see them lived out in private and public life.

"Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own." - Henri Nouwen

🧵Amongst esteemed colleagues, authority feels fluid. If a colleague has more experience and knowledge on a topic, I listen and learn. And vice-versa when I have the greater expertise. Sometimes we disagree, reflect on it, and acknowledge a difference in perspective.

When psychotherapists are more able to inhabit the fullness of themselves, spontaneity may manifest primarily internally, in restraint, listening, and fantasy. We bear, survive, invite, and cultivate beyond words. We communicate our aliveness and presence without needing to talk.

For anyone asking what psychoanalysis offers, I'm always going to return to Winnicott: "To be known in all one's bits and pieces."

Just a reminder that you are doing your best, and that’s more than enough. It’s okay to take it one day at a time.

@JayceLong Self care ideas: -Bubble bath ✅ -Walk outside ✅ -Murder ❌ (didn’t work) -Volunteering ✅

Michael Eigen — Rage