What Does the Patient Need Now? Discussion of “We’re Living in a Society: Ideology and the Social Object”

Abstract

In response to Eric Schwartz’s creative and timely paper, this discussion focuses on three points: First, that analytic patients of this social and cultural moment call upon us to reformulate even relatively recent understandings of—to use Stephen Mitchell’s phrase—“what the patient needs,” agreeing with Schwartz that contemporary analytic subjects are liable to be much more deeply and consistently troubled by the social realm and their places within it. Second, the concept of implication is put forward here as a way to elaborate and deepen our understanding of what is called for in the kind of intersubjective meeting that Schwartz illustrates. Third, this discussion takes up some additional considerations in applying Schwartz’s proposed adaptation of a Fairbairnian model in understanding the role of ideology in psychic structuring; concluding that in acknowledging subtle, multiple, and conflicting feelings and attachments in ourselves, we may inhabit our complex implication in ways that further the kind of responsive intersubjective engagement that our patients and our moment ask of us.