Wisdom from the Couch. Jennifer Kunst

On the Unconscious Life of the Mind

CHAPTER TWO

       IF YOU’RE NOT MOVING FORWARD, YOU’RE MOVING BACKWARD

       On Growing

       CHAPTER THREE

       HARD WORK GROWS THE MIND

       On Work

       CHAPTER FOUR

       THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC . . . OR PERFECTION . . . OR FOREVER

       On Acceptance

       CHAPTER FIVE

       SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE

       On Humility

       CHAPTER SIX

       LIFE IS NOT AN ENTITLEMENT; IT IS A GIFT

       On Gratitude

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       BECAUSE THINKING MAKES IT SO

       On Thinking

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CAN’T LIVE WITH ’EM, CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ’EM

       On Feelings

       CHAPTER NINE

       EVERYONE IS WELCOME AT THE TABLE

       On Balance

       CHAPTER TEN

       YOU DON’T HAVE TO THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE MANGER

       On a Mind of One’s Own

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       IT’S ALWAYS BROKEN, SO WE ALWAYS HAVE TO FIX IT

       On Love, Guilt, and Reparation

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       LOVE IS THE NAME OF THE GAME

       On Finding a Guiding Star

       IN CONCLUSION

       ENDNOTES

FOREWORD

      IN THIS IMPRESSIVE BOOK FOR the general reader, Jennifer Kunst finds wisdom not only from her training and practice as a psychoanalyst, but also from her experience of everyday life, from films and children’s books, and from her religious training and experience.

      Dr. Kunst spreads her net widely, but her aim is traditional. She sets great store by truth, and by growth and development, and her heart is set on finding peace. As she expresses it, “Peace in the world, peace with your enemies, peace in your families, and peace within yourself. Peace is perhaps the most valuable thing in all of life.”

      Having this goal does not mean that Dr. Kunst ignores the problems that arise along the way, nor does she ignore the horror and violence that we see around us when we read the news or watch TV accounts of wars, terrorist attacks, and counterattacks.

      She searches for “a bigger life and a bigger God out there.” In the past she has worked with criminally insane patients and has encountered “people from other races and cultures, poverty, violence, addiction, crime, severe mental illness, and a host of other contexts so far from my own.” All this has broadened and deepened her understanding, so that she is far from an armchair theoretician.

      Perhaps most important is her awareness that any belief system can be turned into a fundamentalist creed, whether religious, political, philosophical, or psychoanalytic. In this respect she recognizes how difficult it is to live in the real world with its pain, disappointment, and imperfection, and how tempting it is to turn to a belief in our own omnipotence—a concept that Melanie Klein found to be so central to the human condition. Dr. Kunst suggests that omnipotence commonly involves three related beliefs: a belief in magic, a belief that we can be perfect, and a belief that we will live forever.

      It is Jennifer Kunst’s experience as a young psychoanalyst that allows her to deepen her understanding of the human predicament. Not content with the isolation of the clinical situation, she applies the knowledge acquired there to the tasks of everyday life. In doing so, she allows readers to reflect on the psychoanalytic dynamics that might be at play in their own lives.

      This sensitive and passionate book will interest a wide range of readers, and particularly those who wish to look beneath the surface of beliefs, dogmas, and ideologies. It is so easy to look for magical solutions from an omnipotent deity or an omnipotent ideological system, and in this way to partake of the omnipotence. If we take this route, we come to believe that only our thinking is right and we react with prejudice to other beliefs.

      Perhaps the most potent counter to prejudice is knowledge, and Jennifer Kunst has made a valiant attempt to integrate various sources of knowledge and bring them to bear on the contemporary problems of everyday living.

       —John Steiner, MD, Training and Supervising Analyst at the British Psychoanalytic Institute; Author, PSYCHIC RETREATS and SEEING AND BEING SEEN: EMERGING FROM A PSYCHIC RETREAT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      AS LONG AS I CAN remember, I have wanted to be a writer. As evidence, there is a photo of me at around age four, sitting at the dining room table on a makeshift high chair of phone books, hunched over an old Royal typewriter, looking like a cub reporter trying to make a deadline. This book, then, is the ripening of that early aspiration and the joyful satisfaction of it.

      My mother tended my childhood aspirations with a loving touch, although, sadly, she didn’t live long enough to see my dream come true. I am fortunate to still have a father and a sister who remember that photo as if it were taken yesterday, who have always cheered me on as they watched me grow. So, to the family of my childhood, I offer my first thanks.

      A book that speaks about the wisdom of psychoanalysis cannot be conceived in a vacuum; to have any real depth, it requires lived experience that can only be found in an intentional community of learning. My community is the Psychoanalytic Center of California (PCC) in Los Angeles. At PCC, adoptive parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, and children have taught me, influenced me, fed me, challenged me, and helped me find my voice. In particular, Dr. Mark Hassan and Dr. Chris Minnick brought to life the concepts of Melanie Klein, both for me and within me. I am forever in their debt and promise to pay it forward.

      I am grateful to my group of dedicated patients who have opened their hearts, minds, and lives to me, day after day, week after week, and often year after year. They have given me the gift of meaningful work, and I have learned so much from them. I also extend my thanks to the students who