A-new love
Angelica tells us that her encounter with psychoanalysis took place in 2020. It was a year in which “she found herself in a sort of crisis, which did not necessarily have anything to do with the COVID pandemic”.
This encounter with her analyst, Yoany Rendón, took place in the city of Neiva in Colombia, where she had been invited to a conference given by the psychoanalyst .
Having never undergone any form of “listening or therapy before, she had only in her imagination what she had heard from others who had in some way approached this or other schools of thought different from psychoanalysis”. She tells us she was pleasantly surprised by the latter.
Not only did she have her one-to-one analytical experience, but she also began to take part in study groups and “in psychoanalytic presentations applicable to many areas of life. The message there is always clear: betting on life”
“She went from reading the Iliad and the Odyssey out of obligation in the past to doing so for pleasure, seeing how psychoanalysis refers to these and other great works, as well as psychoanalytic theories.”
“This has enriched her profession as a civil engineer. From that world where everything is measurable, exact and almost immutable, she has managed to renew that a-new love there, in a way that allows her to humanise her work.”
From the cough that plagued her for months without any remedy, to “that world that troubled her and which she spent her time trying to organise, they have ceased to be a source of discontent for her.
“Something she had been unable to name and believed she did not have a clue about, yet, little by little, her analyst’s listening enabled her to understand her ailments and gradually gain a little freedom.” Angelica summarises in the following points what she has understood so far from her analysis:
- Taking responsibility means stopping looking to others. Likewise, it means ceasing to seek out and adopt victimising positions.
- The question now is not why the other person does not change something. It is rather, how to act to change this world that afflicts me and that I have chosen.
- I no longer seek change in others. I accept that everyone has their own unique processes, without taking on their burdens myself.
- It is necessary to observe the actions of the Other, without victimising oneself because of it. To let each person take responsibility for their own actions.
In other words, as the psychoanalyst José María Álvarez puts it, she has encountered what Antifonte and later Sigmund Freud proposed “regarding the therapeutic use of the word, ethical stances towards distress, and subjective responsibility” (1).
Responsibility that relates to that conquest of freedom Angelica mentions, the notion of which, for psychoanalysis, according to José María Álvarez: “is not a freedom that is given from the outset, an ontologically immanent freedom, but rather a conquest to be achieved”.
Perhaps the most important thing, Angelica continues, “is to be attentive to those moments when something is repeating itself so as to make an immediate shift. That is how I try to avoid going backwards”.
On this last point, she tells us, “for example, with my 13-year-old son, I have learnt that I must let him be without burdening him with my own burdens. I realised, to give an example, that before recommending analysis or therapy to him, it is I myself who must go through that process, without believing that I have all the answers.
That’s how I get my son to take responsibility for what happens to him too.”
“Likewise, I’ve realised that we must recognise that others have knowledge and know-how. Without imposing, nor letting myself be imposed upon. Accepting the singularity of others and acknowledging that I don’t know everything, that one can always ask questions.”
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(1) José María Álvarez, Estudios sobre la psicosis, Barcelona, Xoroi Edicions, 2014.
