We cannot truly relate to each other unless we realize:  there is more to us than each other.

We are afloat in a sea of possibilities for relation that sustain and connect us. As human beings, we are gifted with an innate and shared capacity to imagine at the root of our intelligence.  In fact, we imagine hints of possibilities before we actually give them form. The shadowy forms of possibility take shape only within the undefined creative spaces between us. Premature certitude snuffs out the flame of imagination.

We rely on all our senses: sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing.  But our senses can easily mislead us if we fragment them from the primary sense that creates and integrates them all: our intelligence housed in a sense of imagining possibilities.  Paradoxically, this primary sense is only ignited in the momentary space of surprise and release we allow between us. In these moments of suspension, possibility allows us to be with each other … not only in and for each other. It allows our becoming … in the only way possible: together.

I cannot meet you if I only know you.

The root of all desire is the reaching of our innate, intelligent capacity to imagine. Desire’s paradox is its renovation of all forms possibility allows … endlessly. When we box in imagination, we desiccate the grace of desire. We suffocate being alive. We fragment our links to the sea of possibilities that sustain and connect us.

I cannot love you if I only know you.

Freedom is the allowance of desire’s release into that unknown possibility between us and within which we abide.

We cannot find compassion within us without the allowance of freedom’s adventure of discovery.

Imagine that!

***

What we are doing in analysis is to enable people

increase their feeling of freedom.

In what way?

To liberate the forces present in themselves

to enjoy life,

not as scared people looking for safety,

nor repenting sinners,

but as human beings

inhabited by something which makes them move on

in quest of something they value.

Analysis should improve their capacity to cathect something.

We don’t have to say what; they will find out.

The world is diverse enough to give them

an opportunity of choosing.

In other words, analysis should improve

what the patient already has

or give him the possibility of finding that life is worth living.

When I look at the world,

consider how I act, see how others act,

it doesn’t seem to me that they are looking for safety,

it doesn’t seem to me that they are absorbed in reparation,

what I see is that really they are trying to seek something

trying to find out what we are running after.

And this is the real question.

And this is what analysis is about.

Things most obvious

are really not taken into account.

The world is large enough,

you will find some interest in some parts of it.

Nobody says that we all have to share the same interest

except in dictatorships,

but otherwise …

butterflies, umbrellas, cakes or stars,

well,

you have to find your way.

After Andre Green

Interview with Lesley Caldwell

©  2016 James Donnelly, DSW.LCSW

All rights reserved

South Garden Press, New York

For thoughts and comments, please e mail to: jdonnellydsw@gmail.com