Becoming Alive: Psychoanalysis and Vitality

206 Pages·2005·1.39 MB·English

by  RYAN LAMOTHE

Becoming Alive
Human beings are uniquely concerned with the question and marvel of what it means to
feel alive and real, as well as the lifelong struggle of being alive together. Becoming Alive
proffers a psychoanalytic theory of experiences of being alive, acknowledging that
analyst and patient—indeed, each of us—are caught up in the larger drama and mystery
of being alive.
Focusing on the challenge in any psychoanalytic theory to demonstrate the relation
between culture, community, and the individual, LaMothe’s theory provides a bridge
between the three, arguing that organizations of experiences of being alive are
inextricably yoked to cultural stories, rituals, and practices.
Enlivened by clinical illustrations and examples drawn from wider culture, Becoming
Alive brings together psychoanalytic developmental perspectives, infant-parent research,
semiotics, and philosophy to provide a comprehensive and systematic description of
subjective and intersubjective experiences of being alive.
Ryan LaMothe is a Professor of Pastoral Counseling at St. Meinrad School of Theology,
a Diplomate in the American Psychotherapy Association, a fellow in the American
Association of Pastoral Counselors, and a member of the American Psychological
Association (Divisions 36 and 39). He has published in the areas of religion and
psychology, counseling, and psychoanalysis.

Becoming Alive
Psychoanalysis and vitality
Ryan LaMothe

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2005 by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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© 2005 Ryan LaMothe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict
environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable forests.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
LaMothe, Ryan, 1955–
Becoming alive: psychoanalysis and vitality/by Ryan LaMothe.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58391-930-9 (hardcover: alk. paper)—ISBN 1-58391-931-7
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Transitional objects (Psychology) I. Title.
BF175.5.T73L36 2005
150.19′5–dc22
2004021575
ISBN - Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 1-58391-930-9 (hbk)
ISBN 1-58391-931-7 (pbk)
Para
Cyn
mi vida,
y
Marcos
mi compadre

Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiv

1 Vitality in human life and psychoanalysis 1
2 Embodied vitality 25
3 Living objects 49
4 Vital subjects 72
5 Enlivening stories 96
6Couch and culture: trauma and cultural constrictions of vitality and the 120

psychoanalytic process

Notes 144
References 154
Index 167

Preface
For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and
beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most
perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn may know, they cannot know the
beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after
the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is
ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time.
(D.H.Lawrence, 1980, p. 149)
“Knowledge for knowledge’s sake” or “art for art’s sake” are claims
that hide a grain of truth in a bushel of error. All human activity is for
life’s sake—Lengthen your cords & strengthen your stakes—life more
abundant, copious, spreading out, clutching the very gate-ways to the
stars.
(John Macmurray, quoted in Costello, 2002, p. 94)
Find out what makes you most alive and do that, for what the world
needs more than anything else is people who are fully alive.
(Howard Thurman, personal communication from
Dr. Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner)
In Jeremy Leven’s comedic movie, Don Juan De Marco (1995), Marlon Brando, as Dr.
Jack Mickler, a highly skilled psychiatrist nearing retirement, desires to help a young
man, Johnny Depp, who believes he is Don Juan. To Don Juan, the psychiatric hospital is
Don Octavio’s (Dr. Mickler’s) villa. To the staff, Don Juan is simply another delusional
patient, yet his passion and vitality are real. Over the course of a week, Brando listens
closely to the stories Don Juan tells of his early life in Mexico, his first of many sexual
adventures, his father’s tragic death and avenging this death, and his exotic travels
abroad. While listening, the psychiatrist is confronted with a strange fact—the putative
delusional patient is more alive than the ostensibly sane staff. Don Octavio struggles
between the medical system’s preoccupation with diagnoses and treatment plans, which
aim patients—via drugs and therapy—toward accommodation to “reality,” and the very
real passion of this young man and his illusions. In the end, it is the patient who helps the
world-weary psychiatrist risk becoming more alive and more passionate and, ultimately,
both escape the confines of the physical and ideological institution.
Before the escape, let the camera pan to this psychiatric facility and eavesdrop on an