Introduction to Private Lives

Once in a New York City taxi, I witnessed a driver speak a Slavic language on his cell phone, glance at the New York Post on his seat, and respond to me in English about my complaint that he was speeding. I found his ability to negotiate these different states of being while still doing his job effectively to be amazing. Such multiple states were studied and professionally popularized by the late Philip Bromberg, psychoanalyst and scholar; I find his theory applicable especially in these day-to-day experiences. It’s a talent to be able to experience multiple self-states simultaneously without significant disturbance to one’s functioning. In “On Being Human,” Beth Feldman appears gifted enough to enable her to take care of her patient, stay attuned to her phone for news about her hospitalized father, and also keep track of her failing mother. Most importantly, during these turbulent situations, she is able to keep herself from tipping over. Feldman describes the painful memories her patient expresses and creatively associates to her own childhood. In toggling between her own experience and her patient’s, she demonstrates the optimal use of an analyst’s ability to shift between self-states in order to enrich the patient’s experience both in the transference and in her own external world outside the office. The way Feldman moves back and forth in time, sliding between her own past, her patient’s current troubles, and her care for her father, is remarkable in that it truly enriches her psychoanalytic treatment of Lydia.