The Psychoanalyst's Pain

Coping with the Disquieting Nature of Psychoanalytic Work (Vol. 2, Issue 26)

Some years ago, my kid brother, Sam, now a decidedly non-kid of 59, quipped:

I can’t believe you get paid to just talk to people!

Sam has learned a great deal about depth psychotherapy since then. He understands, more than most, how psychoanalytic processes work. Nonetheless, in our weekly Monday night phone calls, he still asks me, from time to time,

How…