Looking for Lily: Toward an Ontological Psychoanalysis with a Young Chinese Woman during COVID

ABSTRACT This essay describes a treatment with a young Chinese woman whom I call Lily. It deepened during the COVID pandemic when the vulnerability and tenacity of therapeutic aspiration of my patient and me brought forth a serious reckoning in me with my hitherto largely unexamined understanding and practice of psychoanalysis as “epistemological,” foregrounding knowledge, insights, and explicit verbal intervention. I became more aware of an “ontological” dimension of psychoanalytic work that emphasizes “being” and “becoming,” and asks basic questions such as “who are we,” “what are we like to each other,” and “what we could possibly be like.” For me, this changed vision of psychoanalytic work leads to a focus more on cultivating a deep human bond between the analyst and the patient and recognizing a fragile but also potentially powerful “therapeutic striving” presumably inherent in all humans. This shift in conceptual and clinical focus brought about significant change and growth both in my patient and in me.