Alterity, Initiation, and the Call to Suffer: Response to Commentaries by Celenza and Itzkowitz

Abstract

The discussions by Celenza and Itzkowitz underline the therapeutic principle that the splintered internal worlds of dissociative patients can be accessed in multiple ways. In my response to their commentaries, I will discuss how the use of theory can become a simulacrum of the colonial mind-set. I also echo Celenza’s idea (this issue) that the enactment of maternal eroticism is crucial in clinical work with psychopathy and perversion. I add that there is no degree of preparation or style of participation that protects the therapist from encounters with his own alterity.