Psychoanalytic reflections through the prism of September 11, 2001

An important area for psychoanalytic study is the significance for intrapsychic life of important events taking place in the community of which analyst and analysand are a part. September 11, 2001 provides a vantage point for examination of questions that arise from looking at the interrelationship between current environment and intrapsychic life. Two cases are presented as a focus for discussing the interaction of the memorialized past and occurrences in present reality, the significance for an analysis of analyst and patient sharing the same experience, instigations to progress that a current event may provide and the ways in which communal experience influences intrapsychic life. As a part of the discussion, we ask as well in what ways a common experience may be shared, and the significance of radically different meanings that the same event may have for analyst and analysand. We also pose the question whether the differences and similarities, each in their own way, may serve as progressive forces in the analysis.