In My Right Mind: Truth in the Guise of Illusion

Abstract

Enactments are ubiquitous and essential communications of procedurally encoded relational experience. The analyst’s capacity to grasp and reflect upon these wordless communications is a first step in the process of analytic meaning-making when there are no words to convey these early affective experiences of self in relation to other. Enactments are a facilitative component of the analytic process and analytic action. The challenge in writing about enactment is how to convey these implicit, contextual components of communication in language that often constricts rather than expands imagination and meaning. I approach this challenge in a twofold manner. I explore the complexity of enactment citing relevant literature and propose that enactments are a type of metaphor, “metaphor-in-action.” Then, I illustrate the evocative experience of enactment by presenting my associations to my patient and the narrative that emerged from these associations. I present vignettes in an “enacted” form, instead of the usual process-oriented narration. In doing so, I attempt to play with the challenge of conveying, in writing, the analyst’s subjective experience. I present a narrative, based upon my associations to the enactment between my patient and myself, as a means of elucidating and defining both the feeling of this enactment for me and the resonance between my internal experience and that of my patient—a way of “playing” with what it feels like to be a participant in an enactment.