Before Entering the Analytic Room
After the Intake Session, the client takes time to decide whether to continue working with the analyst they first met, request another analyst, or postpone the analysis because the stimulation of going into the analysis space is difficult. In this article and the next few articles, I would like to divide the readers who will read this article into several groups and share some things to keep in mind before we start sharing the article in earnest. I hope that you will think about whether to continue reading this article, whether to stop, and what attitude to take if you do. This can be likened to the time after the Intake Session when you are contemplating whether to continue the analysis of the client. The first article is probably a request to most of you who will read this article, that is, students studying various fields of psychology including psychoanalysis.
One of the good things about studying psychoanalysis in Boston was that I was able to participate in various events on the topic of psychoanalysis around me. Once or twice a month, my school held a psychoanalysis education event open to the public, and when a related book was published, a book launch was also held at a nearby school. There were so many case seminars that I couldn’t attend them all. The annual seminar held in New York on a weekend cost a lot of money, including travel expenses, but I tried to attend as much as possible.
You might wonder why there are so many schools of thought in psychoanalysis, a minor discipline, but it was interesting to see the subtle differences in approach at each conference. Not only the approach, but also the people and the atmosphere within were slightly different. While living in Boston, psychoanalysis didn’t feel like a minor academic field. Rather, it felt like the Atlantic Ocean itself—vast, expansive, and teeming with information. I felt like a small boat afloat on that ocean, my very being composed of the knowledge and ideas drifting within it. This experience of being able to consume a variety of widely available psychoanalytic knowledge often felt like leaving a buffet without eating all the food.
“This isn’t psychoanalysis...”
I diligently visited these events as if I was breaking a seal, but I often felt an uneasy lingering feeling. I couldn’t exactly explain the feeling that I had missed the point, but I would often return home with a bitter feeling and a lot of food for thought. And paradoxically, because of this feeling of being off-track, I became even more obsessed with the question, “What is psychoanalysis to me? What is the psychoanalysis that gives me that feeling of an arrow hitting the center?” and I sought out these events even more diligently.
Some time ago, I attended a seminar that brought together art and psychoanalysis. I was absentmindedly scrolling through my social media stories when I suddenly came across an advertisement for the event. Painting and psychoanalysis? It was an unmissable opportunity—two of my favorite topics in one place. I don’t remember the exact title, but it centered around a talk led by a psychoanalyst, combined with art appreciation, under the theme of “Saying the Unsaid.”
When I entered the venue, I was immediately struck by a presentation screen installed on the wall—barely visible to the participants and mostly ignored by the audience. The psychoanalyst giving the talk, who had studied Lacanian theory, spoke about many things, but her talk felt like a set of railroad tracks, interrupted and broken in places. More than the content itself, I found myself preoccupied with the disjointedness between her points. Her way of speaking reminded me of that screen—tucked away in the periphery of vision yet oddly arresting. (In fact, most Lacanian analysts I’ve met tend to speak in this manner—perhaps echoing Lacan himself. I’ll have more to say on this another time.)
She also critiqued how useless and helpless communication has become through social media platforms, especially the ones predominantly used by young people today. She argued that such communication constitutes “what is said but not said,” ultimately funneling her message toward the conclusion: “You need psychoanalysis to speak the things that are not said.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer. During the Q&A session, I raised my hand. I wanted to talk about the very thing that was “seemingly said but not said” in this seminar. I wanted to bridge the sense of fragmentation. Rather than pushing the unspoken aspects into the abstract space of “psychoanalysis”—a space unfamiliar to most attendees—I wanted those unspoken parts to be spoken here, in the space of the seminar itself.
As gently and clearly as I could, I pointed out the screen that had been installed just out of sight, and the subtle disconnects within the analyst’s narrative. I also shared my view that social media posts represent perhaps the lowest form of communication in terms of speaker control—precisely because they minimize the speaker’s authority. Once something is posted online, the speaker relinquishes control. You don’t know who will read it, how they’ll interpret it, or how they’ll respond—and often, you don’t even get to know the response unless someone decides to comment. To me, this kind of communication, one that lets go of control, is something only the truly vulnerable can engage in. It requires the courage to respond to any reaction, even when you don’t know where the fire might spread. That includes me, writing this very essay right now. (And let’s not forget how I even found this seminar! How ironic it is to declare the uselessness of SNS communication at an event advertised and attended through SNS!)
But the responses I received were disappointing.
“I’m not sure. The PowerPoint screen wasn’t set up by me—it was the organizer’s decision.”
“Well, you may think that way about SNS communication, but I still think it’s a helpless way to communicate. What do others think?”
And just like that, the conversation ended.
Ah! This is the river between words and words!!! Once again, I felt the jarring sensation of a broken railway line.
In the end, this seminar collapsed under the weight of its own theme: the failure to say what wasn’t said. Rather than exploring and connecting the unsaid, the language remained fragmented, performed but unresolved—leaving me with an awkward discomfort, like walking out of a bathroom without wiping. What frustrated me most about the conversation was that the room had been filled with rich unconscious expressions related to the topic, but the person leading the talk failed to weave them together. It felt like watching someone freeze fresh ingredients instead of recognizing their potential and preparing a meal.
At its heart, psychoanalysis is about how the analyst receives the fragments the client throws out—and how they help the client make meaning from them. The psychoanalyst who introduced herself as the guide of this seminar did introduce several theories related to early relational communication. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel she had failed to fulfill the role of an analyst—someone who gathers the scattered elements in the room and helps articulate the very thing that is trying to be said but remains unspoken.
This article turned out to be longer than I expected. And yet, there is still so much more I want to say on this topic. But in consideration of the reader’s fatigue, I will move quickly toward the conclusion.
What I have come to realize over the past 14 years—years spent asking “What is not psychoanalysis?” and searching for what should be said within psychoanalysis—is that the way something is spoken is more important than the content itself. When a piece of meaning is thrown into the river of psychoanalysis, its value lies not in what is inscribed within it, but in how it floats, how it connects to other breakwaters, and how it participates in shaping the flow of the current.
I’ve also come to see that whenever we try to speak something truthfully, the unconscious begins preparing that communication even before we are aware of it—it quietly sets the table for a meaningful exchange within the space of the conversation. When engaging analytically, there’s no need to rummage through books in search of the perfect passage that captures what you want to say. Theory is only a footnote. If the analyst is attuned, the dynamics already present in the space are forming a conversation around the topic. If the analyst responds swiftly, they can guide the conversation with as much depth as the participants have already brought into the room. The analyst’s role is to weave together the fragments of language scattered across that shared space.
The reason I often felt, in so many seminars, that “this is not psychoanalysis” is because there was little process, within the limited time, to truly savor that table of conversation—to share it, to connect through it, and to explore the many thoughts and feelings that had already been prepared unconsciously.
Knowing this, I admit it feels like a dereliction of duty to be writing [My Psychoanalysis Story] in such a one-sided form. And so—I begin by acknowledging this dereliction. Before I started writing, I wondered who would read it. I only mentioned it to a few people close to me whom I thought would be able to read and understand it. If this article happened to appear in your algorithm, it’s likely because you, too, are someone who studies the mind. Most of all, I imagine it will be read by colleagues studying psychology or counseling, particularly those with an interest in psychoanalytic approaches.
As you read this essay, written in a mode of communication that is decidedly not psychoanalytic, you may well feel, “Ah, this isn’t psychoanalysis.” And as I’ve already confessed, that feeling is entirely valid in a format like this. Still, what I hope to ask of you is this: just as I continued attending seminar after seminar, hoping to encounter a version of psychoanalysis that resonated with me, and just as I speak to you now in search of it—I hope your journey doesn’t stop at that feeling. Ultimately, psychoanalysis must become one’s own story. I hope you will follow the thread of what in my language felt insufficient, excessive, uncomfortable, or overly accommodating; I hope you’ll listen for what parts sounded like psychoanalysis to you—and what didn’t. And I hope you’ll connect those moments to your story.
As I continue to study the many theories within psychoanalysis, I often feel they are telling the same story in different terms. But that doesn’t make each theory meaningless. Rather, each theory uses its own language to reach aspects the others may have overlooked or been unable to express sensitively. I believe your journey and mine will be like that too. I believe the subtle fluctuations—where we agreed on certain things and dismissed others—will eventually flow together into one larger stream within the river of psychoanalysis.