Experiences of Psychoanalytic Intuition: How We Know What We Don't Know We Know

March 5, 2010, 3:45-6:00pm

Experiences of Psychoanalytic Intuition: How We Know What We Don't Know We Know

Presenter: David Socholitzky, Ph.D.

I have known for a long time that if I pay close attention to the music that comes into my mind while I work, the words, or overall feeling of the song, may bring with them new information about my state of mind at that particular moment - an association, a feeling, an idea, an anxiety, or a defensive stance. Recently, I had a different kind of experience with internal music, one that took me aback and left me wanting to know more about what had happened. While listening to a patient describe a behavior we had been trying to figure out for a while, a line from a song appeared suddenly in my mind; almost as suddenly, this lyric was followed by a completely new idea in the form of a fully-formed interpretation of that behavior. This idea was a new one to both of us and proved extremely helpful to our work.

My search to understand what had happened is what I'd like to present and talk together about in this presentation. The original question I posed was: "How did my unconscious mind come up with this complex and productive idea that I did not previously know I knew?" In the process of thinking this through I read and thought about the nature of unconscious thinking and feeling from a variety of personal and theoretical perspectives: The impact of lyrical music on the brain and psyche; the multiple conscious and unconscious psychological capacities required if one is to merge with a singing partner, or an orchestra, while paying close attention to the mechanics and technique of singing or playing music; the effects of poetry on unconscious and conscious thinking and experiencing; the insights of contemporary psychoanalytic writing and contemporary psychoanalytic neuroscience about unconscious associative cognition. I'll talk briefly about some of what I've learned from all of this, and about how I was able to make some informed guesses about the complex series of associations that might have played out in unconscious mind to lead me to this new interpretation. The experience has left me in awe of the power of unconscious intuition and the myriad personal ways we each listen and respond to therapeutic material and to ourselves. I'd very much like to hear about others' unique intuitive experiences during this presentation.

David Socholitzky is a member of the supervising and teaching faculty of TPI. He practices in Berkeley.

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