Locating the couch:an autobiographical analysis of the multiple spatialities

of psychoanalytic therapy

Alberto Vanolo

Draft; final version published in Social & Cultural Geography (2014)http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2014.882973

Abstract

Using an autobiographical methodology, the paper examines the differentspatialities involved in psychoanalytic therapy. The paper proposes anunderstanding of space that is simultaneously physical, relational,emotional, symbolic and transformative. Focusing on the practices andmicrogeographies involved in psychoanalytic therapy, the aim of the paperis to contribute to the body of literature dealing with psychoanalyticgeography by discussing how spatial logics pervade psychoanalytictreatment and to test autobiography as an experience-near, subjectivelyimmersed instrument for investigation.

Key words

psychoanalytic geography, psychoanalytic therapy,psychoanalysis,autobiography, personal diary, transformative space.

1

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to provide a geographical analysis of thespatialities of psychoanalysis and, in particular, of the room wherepsychoanalytic therapy occurs. Because space is multidimensional, more-than-physical and more-than-cognitive, much can be said about thepossible spatial fields and meanings at play in the psychoanalyticsetting. In this paper, I will map the multiple spatialities surroundingmy personal experience with psychoanalysis in a way which may hopefullycontribute to existing literature on psychoanalytic geographies andtherapeutic landscapes. In particular, I introduce the notion oftransformative space, and assuming a dynamic and relational conception ofspace (specifically the one proposed by Massey 2005), I argue thatpsychoanalytic therapy is deeply spatial.

The analysis is based on an autobiographical methodology using myexperience of Freudian psychoanalytic therapy as empirical material.Furthermore, the paper illustrates the effort required to work on a verypersonal assemblage of geographical ideas, emotional disorders andempirical facts, both at cognitive and emotional levels (if it is somehowpossible to distinguish between the two). In fact, I experienced adifficult period in my life and had problems performing my duties as ageography researcher. Assuming that there is no boundary whichdichotomously separates the personal and the intimate from the productionof scientific knowledge, in this paper, I explicitly try to face andelaborate, here and now, the positions which as a geographer I developedthrough contact with psychotherapy.

In order to develop its arguments, the paper is organized as follows. Thenext section introduces therapeutic landscapes and psychoanalyticgeography. It is worth noting that this paper chiefly approachespsychoanalytic geography as an object of research and not as amethodology; in other words, there will not be any direct attempt to usepsychoanalytic ideas as a theoretical framework. Methodologically, thepaper will rely mostly on autobiographical concepts, as outlined inSection 3, while Section 4 develops an analysis of my ongoing personalexperience with psychotherapy as well as introduces the idea oftransformative space. Finally, in the conclusions (Section 5), I discussthe notion of transformative space as a useful way to conceptualize thepsychotherapeutic setting and as a way of considering the researcher’sporosity in the research process.

2

Therapeutic landscapes and psychoanalysis in geography (and vice versa)

The autobiographical analysis proposed in the paper seeks to contributeto the understanding of a specific therapeutic landscape, i.e. the roomwhere psychoanalysis is performed. The term therapeutic landscape wasoriginally introduced by Wil Gesler who defined it ‘as a geographicmetaphor for aiding in the understanding of how the healing process worksitself out in places (or situations, locales, settings, milieus)’ (Gesler1992, p. 743). The literature on therapeutic landscapes includes analysesof the natural, built, social and symbolic dimensions of a wide range ofplaces, exploring how they contribute to healing and well-being (Williams2010). Studies include examinations of physical places which some peopleassociate with health and well-being, such as wilderness environments(Bell 1999; Palka 1999), monasteries (Conradson 2007) and yoga centres(Hoyez 2007); the analysis of healthcare sites such as hospitals (Evans,Crooks and Kingsbury 2009) and the influence of meaningful fictionalplaces on people’s perception and understanding of illness and health,such as in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain(Gesler 2000).

The analysis proposed in this article concerns the spatialities of thepsychoanalytic room. Psychoanalysis is a scientific field originallyoutlined by Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcentury and later elaborated by several scholars who founded separateschools, including Adler, Jung, Lacan and many others. It is beyond thescope of this article to closely review the various psychoanalyticalapproaches or to propose a summary of their main concepts and ideas. Butkey Freudian concepts such as the unconscious, drive, libido, repressionand transference are both popular and wellknown (and ‘bastardized’,according to Philo and Parr 2003, p. 286) in contemporary Westernculture.

In essence, there are two ways in which the geographical literature hasapproached psychoanalysis. First, several authors have employedpsychoanalytic concepts and perspectives in their geographicalinvestigations. In these cases, psychoanalysis has essentially been usedas a methodological or theoretical perspective (for a review of earlyliterature, see Kingsbury 2004, 2009). Psychoanalytical approaches gainedground in geography in a nonlinear way as part of a conversationcharacterized by contributions, silences, internal divisions and

3

discontinuities[1]. As stressed by Gould (1978) and Philo and Parr (2003),some geographers considered psychoanalysis to be overly‘individualistic’. Put differently, psychoanalysis was seen as beingconfined to the analysis of individual psyches, thereby overlookingcollective human action and the development of political perspectives.Moreover, according to Philo and Parr (2003), many geographers feltuncomfortable dealing with the unconscious as raw material forgeographical inquiry. This discomfort was particularly evident amongstthose whose work assumed humans to be conscious, self-aware andapparently self-directing beings who make rational decisions on the basisof available information.

These assumptions of human rationality and awareness were increasinglychallenged in geography from the mid-1980s onwards, in particular due tothe work of Steven Pile. In an article published in 1991 Pile stressedthe potential of psychoanalytic frameworks to develop geographicalanalysis and overcome the limits of traditional conceptualizations ofbehavioural geography. According to Pile, psychoanalytic thought made itpossible to link the individual and society and the expression of psycho-social experiences at different geographical scales (Philo and Parr 2003;Pile 1991,1996; Sibley 1995). Assumptions of human rationality have alsobeen challenged by feminist geographers who, particularly during the1990s, embraced psychoanalytic perspectives in order to criticize thevision of individuals as autonomous, bounded, intentional agents and inorder to challenge the binary structure of much geographical thinking(linking for example masculinity to rationality, mind and objectivity andfemininity to emotionality, the body and subjectivity; see, e.g. Bondi1999; Nast 2000; Robinson 2000; Rose 1996).

A special issue of Social & Cultural Geography in 2003 (Bingley 2003; Bondi2003; Callard 2003; Kingsbury 2003; Oliver 2003; Philo and Parr 2003;Sibley 2003; Wilton 2003) contributed profoundly to widening thetheoretical and methodological debate regarding the interaction betweenpsychoanalysis and geography. Also, in 2010, a special issue of TheProfessional Geographers discussed the use of psychoanalytic methodologies ingeography (Healy 2010; Kingsbury 2010; Pile 2010a; Proudfoot 2010; Thomas2010).

Psychoanalytic perspectives have also been explicitly and repeatedlyinvoked in the field of emotional geographies. In close connection togeographical debates in humanistic, feminist and non-representationalgeography, emotional geography has engaged with psychoanalytic

4

perspectives by focusing on the role of emotions within complex sets ofunfolding intersubjective relations and representations. Moreover,emotional geography has developed interpretative frameworks whichapproach emotions as a relational, connective medium in which bothresearchers and researched subjects are deeply embedded (Bondi 2005; seealso Curti, Aitken, Bosco and Goerisch 2011; Davidson, Bondi and Smith2005; Pile 2010b; Smith, Davidson, Cameron and Bondi 2009; Thrift 2008).In this sense, and according to Bondi (2005), psychotherapy offersimportant insights for geographers interested in developing relationalapproaches to emotions (see also Bennett 2009).

The second way in which geographers have approached psychoanalysis is toconsider psychoanalytic practices as objects of research. In the field ofhistoric geography, Elizabeth Gagen and Denis Linehan convened a specialissue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, bringing together severalanalyses of the historical geographies of psychoanalysis (see Gagen andLinehan 2006). In addition, a recent issue of Qualitative Inquiry on Researchand Therapy explores connections between research practices andpsychoanalytic knowledge (concerning geographical perspectives, see Bondi2013; Tamas and Wyatt 2013; Wyatt and Tamas 2013).

A limited number of analyses have focused on the geographies ofpsychotherapeutic provision and the relation between the intellectualdiscipline of geography and therapy. A key author here is Liz Bondi, whohas developed autobiographical perspectives on various styles of therapy(Bondi 1999, 2009, 2013; see also Oliver 2003). Several perspectives inher work with Judith Fewell are shared by the analysis proposed in thispaper; Bondi and Fewell (2003) explore the spatialities of counsellingpractices and discuss how the spatiality of care associated withcounselling involves understanding space as simultaneously real,imagined, material and symbolic. This work emphasizes the crucialimportance of the discourse on spatial settings in psychotherapy andwithin the psychoanalytic discipline. In particular, Bondi (2009)discusses how different forms of psychotherapy are often rigorous aboutparticular spatial configurations of bodies, furniture, doors andwindows.

Finally, if geography has been exposed to psychoanalysis, psychoanalysisalso makes ample use of spatial referents, spatial concepts and spatialmetaphors (Pile 2005). In particular, Freud’s cornerstone text TheInterpretation of Dreams (1900) proposes a ‘topographic’ theory of the mind,dividing mental processes into the conscious, pre-conscious and

5

unconscious. As noted by Pile (1996), psychoanalytic insistence on thepersistence of space in, through, beyond and between the material and thepsychic spheres makes psychoanalysis a form of ‘spatial’ discipline (seeKingsbury 2003, 2004). For example, is it not unusual to imagine thepsychoanalytic process as a practice of ‘going down’, ‘in depth’ in orderto get in touch with one’s deepest feelings.

Methodological remarks: questioning autobiography

This paper is based on an autobiographical analysis of my personalexperience of psychoanalytic treatment, which I underwent twice a weekfor a period of more than 6 years. The main empirical material isrepresented by my personal diary (cf. Alaszewski 2006). Given the easeand passion with which I write, during treatment, I produced a largenumber of diary entries, i.e. chronologically sorted texts describingfacts of my life, personal reflections, dreams and other events. I shouldpoint out that the notes were written for my own benefit; I was driven bythe desire to write in order to reflect on my life, without thinkingabout analysing the material at a later point or writing an article. Forthis reason, the diary entries were not systematic; for example, there isno description of each psychoanalytic session or a precise account of myactivities on a daily basis. The notes were written on my portablecomputer and vary significantly in terms of length and style: some arejust few lines, while others are many pages long; most of them arewritten as first-person descriptions of events and feelings, but severaltake the form of imaginary letters to various people, including thepsychoanalyst. For the purposes of this paper, I identified a total offorty-five texts that directly address my psychoanalytical experience byreferring, for example, to my relationship with the psychoanalyst, thepsychoanalytic room or my dreams involving the psychoanalytic space.

The forty-five texts have then been analysed. From a practical point ofview, I first encoded the forty-five texts by identifying keywords. Whilereading the diary, many personal memories, emotions and Freudian ‘freeassociations’ emerged. I have chosen to consider these thoughts asempirical material by writing them down in a notebook. Then, I cataloguedthe texts into patterns (the diary entries and notes which emerged whilereading) in order to build up the main storyline of the analysis (cf.Boyatzis 1998). If on the one hand, the obvious limit of this methodology

6

is solipsism and the risk of romanticizing the self (Coffey 2004), on theother, it is possible to argue that this methodology offered me anexperience-near and subjectively immersed approach. A close examinationof my personal narratives arguably allows me to access situatedknowledge, perception and emotions (cf. Banks 2003; Mercer 2007;Moss2001; Purcell 2009). Also, the use of a diary provided me with alongitudinal view (Meth 2003; Morrison 2012). I was able to consider‘variations of the self’ including how my experience of thepsychoanalytic space varied over time. Such observations challenged theidea that the self is fully stable, defined and knowable, as ithighlighted to the shifting—and frequently irrational—positionalities ofthe narrator-researcher. Second, I should emphasize that the use ofautobiographical analysis allowed me to analyse a very private space.Psychoanalysis is largely based on private practices: therapies takeshape in the intimacy of closed rooms where external sensorial stimuli,such as noises, are kept to a minimum (cf. Bondi and Fewell 2003). At thesame time, as shall be discussed, the psychotherapeutic process shouldnot be considered as individualistic. First, the process is based on thecontingent encounter between the analysand and the psychoanalyst. Second,the purpose of psychoanalytic treatment takes different meanings from theperspectives of the patient and the psychotherapist, incessantly evolvingover time. In my case, I initially expected therapy to make me ‘feelbetter’, but with time and following discussions with the psychoanalyst,I also started to look for the development of new and alternativerelational understandings of thoughts, wishes, drives, fears, etc.Psychoanalysis is therefore performed in a framework of contingency,relations, movements and hence space and is thus able to be investigatedusing geographical and spatial perspectives.

A personal account of the imaginative spatialities of the psychoanalyticroom

A brief outline of my psychoanalysis and professional position

I am a male Italian geographer aged 37 who started psychoanalysis in2006. In 2005, I experienced depression and, encouraged by close friends,I sought help through psychotherapy (without any expectations orparticular knowledge of the subject). My problem with depression waslimited and addressed in a relatively short time; however, during

7

therapy, the unexpected illness and death of a young relative introduceddifferent discourses, contents and expectations into the work.Psychoanalysis has been important insofar as it has helped me not only tounderstand and alleviate my personal pain, but also to build usefulrelations with people close to me, such as my family. Still, I amcurrently resisting contact with other people. This brings with it asense of isolation and disconnection, and I do not feel at ease when I amaway from home. I am currently finding it very difficult to get in touchwith my former interests and passions including my profession. The senseof disconnection which pervades me at work can be more or less describedas a sense of uselessness, inappropriateness and inconsistent actions.This condition makes me feel guilty and undermines my confidence: I amfully aware of my privileged position in society, in terms of wealth,status and working conditions, but this makes me feel ‘guilty’ ratherthan ‘lucky’. To stop this sense of alienation, I feel an intense desireto fill my work with positive emotions as in the past. At the moment, Iam trying to overcome this sensation by continuing psychoanalytictherapy. On a more subtle level, the personal experience behind thispaper may be considered as an attempt to reconnect with geography throughintrospection.

The psychoanalytic therapy I experienced, and am still experiencing,requires two people, the patient (analysand) and the psychotherapist(psychoanalyst) to meet in a private room free from externalimpingements. I lie on a couch, while the psychotherapist sits outside myline of vision. This spatial configuration is based on the idea thatreducing visual communication helps the analysand engage in subjectiveexperiences without continuously trying to decode the psychoanalyst’snon-verbal forms of communication. As mentioned earlier, in myexperience, the talking process allows the psychoanalyst and theanalysand to seek to ‘map’, ‘explore’ and modify unconscious thoughts,desires and wishes and to alleviate pain, suffering and other symptoms.

Six psychoanalytic therapeutic spaces

In this autobiographical analysis, I focus on the spaces produced betweenthe psychoanalyst and the analysand during psychotherapeutic treatment. Iassume a dynamic and relational concept of space. In line with recentdebates about the nature of geographical space, I will not consider space

8

to be a fixed, definable and fully knowable entity, but rather as areality always in the process of becoming (see particularly Jones 2009;Massey 2005). The analysis therefore focuses on practices andperformances: space is assumed to be brought into being throughperformativity, i.e. through the unfolding actions of people (Rose 1999).This performative perspective views the production of space ascontingent, paradoxical and contradictory. I will work with threeintertwined propositions on space as elaborated by Massey (2005):

1. space is the product of interrelations; put differently, space isconstituted through interactions;

2. space is the sphere in which distinct trajectories coexist: it is theheterogeneous sphere of the possibility of the existence ofmultiplicity;

3. space is always under construction, and it is always in the process ofbeing made.

In what follows, I consider the material, discursive, emotional andsymbolic practices which emerge from my autobiographical analysis inorder to examine the multiple and porous spatial layers in whichpsychoanalytical relations develop. I organize the discussion around sixforms of spatiality: these should not be considered conceptuallyseparate, but rather as interrelated dimensions of the psychotherapeuticspace.

9

The psychoanalytic room as a physical space

The first spatiality which emerges from the diary materials is thematerial space experienced in the banal act of arriving at and meetinginside the psychoanalytic room. More precisely, the roughly 18 m2 room ismaterially located in a studio in the centre of Turin, Italy. The studioincludes a bathroom and a waiting room so that people leaving andarriving do not normally meet each other. The studio also includes amysterious door, but I have no idea where it leads to. A roughschematization of the studio is presented in Figure 1.

Both the waiting room and main room are elegant, comfortable and similarto what I imagine is the stereotype of the Freudian psychoanalytic room.They include lots of Freud’s books, leather couches, carpets, soft lightsand no personal images of the therapist. The male Freudian psychoanalyst,about 50 years old, always sits on a chair just behind the couch where Ilie down.

Figure 1 – The psychoanalytic studio: my mental map

Emotional spaces

The space of the psychoanalytic room is strongly connected to intenseemotional practices and experiences. In my experience, psychoanalyticpractices produce particular kinds of emotional space:

10

When I think of the room I feel a sensation of comfort and intimacy.(Diary excerpt, May 2012).

In other words, encountering the room (going to the room, thinking of it,dreaming of it) produces a whole set of different, contrasting andevolving emotions. Many authors who have dealt with the relationshipbetween emotions and space (see Anderson 2006; Duff 2010) have emphasizedthat emotions are not solely ‘things inside me’. On the contrary,emotions are relational and produced by contingency; they often come fromsomewhere outside the body, from the settings, contexts and places whererelations occur (see Pile 2010b). In this sense, emotions are neither‘possessed’ nor ‘passed’. Over the years, my contact with thepsychoanalytic room has produced a wide range of alternative andcontradictory emotions, from hostility and repulsion during certainperiods (‘I don’t really want to go there’—Diary excerpt, December 2006)to attraction and expectation (‘I think I’ll discuss this event nextFriday’—Diary excerpt, November 2007). At present, as mentioned earlier,intimacy is the main sensation pervading my contact with the room. I donot associate intimacy with ‘secrecy’ as, in time, ‘I opened my room tothe outside’ (Diary excerpt, December 2009), a metaphor I use in order todescribe my growing confidence in openly talking to other people about mypsychotherapy without shame. For me, intimacy involves a feeling ofattraction, comfort and ease. As an example of the attraction towards thespace of the room, I can mention my fascination with the image of thestudio as seen from the outside.

Sometimes I find myself walking in front of the studio as I stroll along,with no specific reason connected to psychoanalysis. It makes me think ofsilly questions such as ‘is it empty?’, ‘when does cleaning takes place?’(Diary excerpt, December 2009).

The above text testifies to an interest in the persistence of place. Theissue of persistence emerges strongly while I read the diary entries; infact, images emerge involving

leaving the studio during different seasons and different years, from hotsummer days to the snowy winter, from times past when I used to run to thekindergarten immediately after psychoanalysis, when my son was younger,to, more recently, when I went to therapy immediately after lecturing.This reminds me of the famous collection of photographs of Auggie’stobacco shop. [Note: in Wayne Wang’s 1995 movie Smoke; in the movie for 14years every day Auggie takes a picture from the street corner outside hisstore. In Auggie’s words, the photographs ‘(...) are all the same. Buteach one is different from every other one. You’ve got your bright

11

mornings and your dark mornings’]. (note written while reading the diary,December 2012).

I associate the idea of persistence to something meaningful and stable,something I could care for, like an old friend in a photo. Because spacesand places are precarious achievements made up of relations betweenmultiple entities (Massey2005), my perception of persistence isemotionally intense. I am aware that my psychoanalytic relationship willnecessarily change with time, producing alternative and evolvingemotional configurations.

Relational spaces

The room is the place where I meet the psychotherapist. Focusing on thespatiality of the relation and ‘thinking space relationally’ (Jones 2009;Massey 2005), the psychoanalytic room may be conceptualized as a process,a mutual and progressive construction where bodies and objects meet andtouch. Of course, the bodies involved are not only human, but assemblagesof any kind including discourses, ideas, emotions, objects and the highlysymbolic couch (cf. Deleuze 1988; see also Lim 2007). In addition,contact in the psychoanalytic relational space takes shape beyond thevisual and challenges dualistic understandings of agency and passivity:in the psychoanalytic relation, behaviours conventionally interpreted assigns of passivity, as silence or resistance to contact with thepsychoanalyst, are considered as active manifestations of the self andhence meaningful acts of agency. For example, I remember manyrelationally and emotionally intense moments marked by absolute silence.Psychoanalytic contact is an intimate border zone, a place to express andexperience emotions and a space which widens and refines what a body isallowed to do (cf. Pratt and Rosner 2006). For example, in my relationwith the psychoanalyst, I feel allowed to do things which I currently donot feel comfortable doing elsewhere such as crying or discussing mysadness and lack of interest in the Other.

I’ve never talked about that my whole life. I have to say that talkingnever made me feel better; on the contrary, I felt really bad, and I thinkhe [the analyst] noticed that. (Diary excerpt, March 2007)

12

Moreover, this quote shows I am aware that I am now able to do thingsthat I did not feel comfortable doing in the past, such as talking (andwriting) about my emotions and building more spontaneous relations.

One key element in most contemporary psychoanalytical schools is thatpsychoanalytic performance is not strictly bound to the intimate roomwhere the relation is performed (cf. Botticelli 2004). The relationbetween the psychoanalyst and the analysand, its effects, theassimilation of alternative ideas and perspectives and, in general,modifications of the self, spill over to the outside, into daily life anddaily relations. In my case, I think that the development of a relationwith the psychoanalyst—a specific relation based on a number ofpeculiarities, including for example protection of confidentiality—allowed me to experience the existence of ‘multiplicity’ (in Massey’ssense), in this case, to experience an alternative human relation. Inthis relationship, I expressed myself in a way which was free from mynarcissistic drives and desires for condescendence; I feel that in time,this experience has in part pervaded my human relationships outside thepsychoanalytic room. This involves and concerns my research practices.For example, I gradually moved from apparently ‘emotionally neutral’objects of research, mainly related to industrial geography, towards more‘emotionally involved’ fields of research, including political geography,geography of sexuality and, in this latter case, psychotherapy[2].Furthermore, I have abandoned some mainstream approaches and topics whichin the past I probably chose, not because I was interested in them, butout of a desire to be accepted by my colleagues.

Imagined space

My changed attitude towards academic research proves to me that I am nota stable researching-entity, but instead a porous construction shapedthrough contact with other bodies, experiences and spaces. Echoing Sack(1997) and Casey (2001), it can be argued that the self and space are co-constituted as each is essential to the being of the other. Because Iassume that space is always in the process of becoming, it may be arguedthat the self is also always in process. What is crucial in this accountis how contact and the predisposition towards contact may augment andenrich the self/space relation, adding new layers of possibledevelopment.

13

To develop this latter argument, it is useful to think of a furtherconceptualization of the room, which echoing Andrews (2004), I call‘imagined space’. By imagined space, I mean a mental representation ofthe therapeutic setting as a sort of ‘therapeutic landscape of the mind’(Gastaldo, Andrews and Khanlou 2004). Without being physically present inthe room, these imaginations can affect the expression and relationsinherent to the self. In my own experience, for instance, I sometimesimagine the psychoanalytic room when I am not in it. In particular, Iused to imagine I was narrating ongoing events and emotions, i.e.translating them into the language of words and discourses as if I had todiscuss events and emotions with the psychoanalyst; sometimes, I evenimagined probable reactions from the psychoanalyst.

I will tell [the analyst] about (...), and I am sure he will ask me tothink about my emotions (...). I will explain to him that I feel sad andmaybe guilty, even if there is no logical reason for feeling this way, andI am pretty sure he will remain silent, at first, but then he’ll invite meto imagine alternative versions of the whole issue, including thepossibility that maybe there are some ‘real’ reasons for feeling guilty.(Diary excerpt, November 2009).

From a psychoanalytic point of view, this phenomenon of reframing, whichI call narrativization, probably has a lot to do with transferencebecause it involves the mobilization and redirection, in my daily life,of the desire to share my daily experiences with the psychoanalyst orsimply to be in the psychotherapeutic room. However, the question canalso be tackled from a socio-geographical point of view by reflecting onthe role and position of the psychoanalytic room in my daily social lifeexperience. In other words, to what degree does the relational experienceof psychoanalysis leak into my other everyday spaces and potentiallyinfluence them?

As an example, I can mention that thinking about how much thepsychoanalytic room is ‘near’ or ‘far’ from my office means, for me,thinking about the mutual co-constitution of emotions, space and contactwith the psychoanalytic field. It is important to mention that theprocess of narrativization is, for me, rather similar to the process ofwriting a paper: during my fieldwork, I sometimes imagine writing aboutwhat I am looking at. Of course, it is impossible to say whether or notthis attitude has been influenced by psychoanalytic therapy; I think itis possible there has been a sort of convergence and mutual influence.

14

Disciplinary space

The practices which are part of the psychoanalytic treatment are far fromspontaneous because they are regulated by a number of explicit andimplicit rules. By choosing to undergo psychoanalytic treatment (as,arguably, any kind of treatment), I am aware that I am submitting myselfto a strict discipline. Many practical rules were explicitly set in myfirst meeting with the psychoanalyst, including, for example, thatmeetings are held at specific times in a specific place (the room) andthat the psychoanalyst has to be paid at the end of each month. Most ofthe rules are, however, not explicit: I have never discussed them withthe psychoanalyst, but these rules contribute to defining the boundariesof my psychoanalytic treatment. For example, it is an implicit rule thatcontact between the therapist and the analysand is restricted to meetingsinside the room (or, in case of urgent messages, to telephone calls) andthat I have to lie down on the couch. Of course, these are not universalrules for psychoanalytic treatments as different treatments and differenttherapists may surely propose or negotiate alternative settings andrules, and hence, the interaction between the patient and the therapistwill produce diverse relational and disciplinary spaces. In my case, thedisciplinary space has been reinforced by recurrent practices as well asby continually avoiding other practices. To quote two examples,

I really enjoyed reading David Foster Wallace. After reading the grotesquestory about the ugly, selfish, depressed person and her relation with thepsychoanalyst, I started thinking I’d be funny and ironic to give the bookto [the analyst]. But is giving a present allowed and appropriate? I don’tthink so, because it never happened in the past years, and because it isclear that our relation has to be somehow ‘professional’. (Diary excerpt,June 2010; note: the story is ‘The depressed person’, in D.F. Wallace,Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, 1999);

I have never ever phoned the analyst to discuss an unexpected problem orevent, and since I have never ever done it in all these years, I havebecome increasingly aware that calling would be out of place. But Iwonder: if I really needed to call him, will I be free to do so? (Note:written while reading my diary, December 2012).

I also perceive that the disciplinary space defines the boundaries inwhich the actions of the therapist take place: for example, he has to bein the room at the time agreed with the analysand, has to maintainconfidentiality, has to generally behave in a professional manner and

15

listen carefully to what I am saying (cf. Bondi and Fewell 2003). What isspecific to psychoanalytic treatment—and what differentiates it from manyother practices requiring discipline—is the fact that the psychoanalyticspace is supposed to be, according to my therapist, a ‘space of freedom’.As the psychoanalyst specifically told me: I have the freedom to speakabout any subject whatsoever, to stay silent, to sleep, to cry, to do‘whatever I want in these fifty minutes’. But I realize that the‘whatever I want’ the psychoanalyst refers to has to be bound by thediscussed set of rules: for example, I am pretty sure that ‘whatever Iwant’ never includes physical aggression against the psychoanalyst. Thismeans it is a very bounded space of freedom which, to be honest, I havenever perceived at all in terms of ‘freedom’. Of course, this does notmean that I am forced to submit myself to this disciplinary space, orthat submission itself may not be useful to healing myself; on thecontrary, it shows that the tension between discipline and freedom in thepsychotherapeutic space is complex and ambiguous.

Dreams

One last practice with a spatial patterning is dreaming, as thepsychoanalytic room occupies an important place in my dream space. Dreamsare empirical materials rarely considered by geographers (with theremarkable exception of Pile 2005). Inspired by debates on the virtual(Shields 2003), I should emphasize that dreams are real experiences. Inthe first place, dreams are real because of the concrete presence ofneurochemistry and the electrical exchanges between brain cells; second,dreams may be so powerful and vivid they can be mistaken for waking lifeexperiences and may even inspire action. At the same time, dreams may becharacterized by peculiar and mysterious spatial mechanisms:

in dreams, objects and people often appear to be ‘there’ and ‘here’ at thesame time. Roads can lead to more than two places at once. Spaces can belogically unrelated but appear connected nonetheless. (Wachtel 1980,quoted in Shields 2003, p. 43).

Dreams are fundamental elements in psychoanalytic theory. Without goinginto the details of these theories, suffice it to say that psychoanalysismade Western popular culture aware of the fact that dreams have personal‘meanings’ and, as suggested by the title of Freud’s famous book, dreams

16

may be ‘interpreted’. Because I am undergoing psychoanalytic treatment, Iclearly tend to focus on my dreaming and to think of dreams as ‘precious’elements to reflect on. In my case, I happened to dream about the studio,alternative settings and imaginary dialogues with the psychoanalyst; Ihave often discussed these dreams with the psychoanalyst himself,arguably nurturing and reinforcing other dreams.

Tonight, I had a really strange dream. I was in the psychoanalytic room.In the dream I had to write a paper about external economies for EconomicGeography, but in the dream I had nothing really new and meaningful to sayabout external economies. So I was discussing this problem with (...) [thepsychoanalyst]. (Diary excerpt, March 2012).

It is beyond the scope of this paper to try and interpret the meaning ofdreams about the psychoanalytic room. What can certainly be mapped is themere presence in dream space: the simple fact that I dream of the roomproduces a dream space that may interfere with the other spatial layersdiscussed in the paper. This vision is in line with the debate on absenceand presence in space (see Callon and Law 2004): considering a dreamspace as different and partly separate from ‘natural’ space, it ispossible to emphasize the role of fluxes, circulation and the modes inwhich spaces and times deploy themselves. As an example, I can mentionthat dream space becomes an element of relational space the moment Istart talking about my dreams with the analyst.

Psychoanalytic spaces at work: the production of transformative space

The six spaces outlined in the previous section—physical space, emotionalspace, relational space, imagined space, disciplinary space and dreamspace—are not interdependent: they are interconnected and overlappinglayers of meaning or different spatial perspectives produced bypsychoanalysis. My argument is that the structure and organization ofthese spatial layers is crucially important in psychoanalytic practices.As a personal example of the relevance of space in psychoanalytictherapy, I can mention that I met the psychoanalyst twice outside thepsychoanalytic room, once in a restaurant and once in the street, and inboth cases, I immediately felt uncomfortable. The feeling that something(our interaction) was ‘out of place’ (cf. Cresswell 1996) underlines thesignificance of spatiality for the generation and circulation of emotionsand meanings. It also illustrates how the various psychoanalytic

17

spatialities outlined here are interconnected. The disruption of thenorms of psychoanalytic setting— meeting the analyst ‘outside’ thetreatment room—frays some of the margins of the psychoanalytic space andunderlines the importance of spatial dimensions in the psychotherapeuticprocess.

Second, the fact that the room, as discussed, pervades ‘other’ emotionaland imaginative spaces in my life suggests that the psychoanalytic roomis a mobile construct, a sort of cognitive and pre-cognitive devicemoving and hybridizing everyday actual and potential experiences. To putit differently, in my experience, psychoanalytic spaces leak intoeveryday spaces influencing, to different degrees, my relations moregenerally. Of course, to a certain extent, every experience and relationis more or less mobile in the sense outlined here; however, in the caseof psychoanalytic therapy, mobility becomes potentially transformative:one of the goals of the psychoanalytic treatment is to permeate andmodify the emotional surface of the analysand’s contacts with otherbodies so as to produce more positive contacts with the world. In thissense, my hypothesis strongly echoes Pile’s assumption thatpsychoanalysis is a spatial discipline (Pile 1996). I use the expression‘transformative space’ to illustrate the spatial pervasiveness of thepsychoanalytic space, which penetrates and potentially modifies dailyspaces and experiences. It should be noted that the idea of ‘space oftransformation’ has already been used in social sciences and particularlyin feminist geography: Robinson (2000), working on the contributions ofButler, Irigaray and Kristeva, analysed the links between spatialimagination and the politics of transformation. Here, my perspective israther different because the focus is limited to my personal experiencesand contacts without a well-defined political perspective or the desirefor progressive and collective social transformations.

I can mention the following as a personal example of the transformativespace of psychotherapy. In recent months, I experienced difficulty ingetting dressed and leaving the house as I perceived these activities tobe tiring, laborious and pointless.

It overwhelms me to think about the many things I’ll have to do tomorrowin order to get to the office: I will have to get up, have breakfast,wash, dress, get out, unlock my bicycle, greet people I know... I knowstaying at home is morbid, but getting out of the house seems to me toodifficult. (Diary excerpt, November 2012).

18

Because I do not have to go to my Department regularly, I can work fromhome with my personal computer and carry out research from the privatespace of my home and with very limited contact with other people. Thefact that the psychoanalytic setting ‘forced’ me to go the analyst’sstudio twice a week helped me maintain contact with leaving the house,fight my attitude towards isolation and continue going to my workplace.You could say that other social practices (e.g. attending a gym) mayproduce a similar effect, and in this sense, I am convinced thatpsychoanalysis is not necessarily the best therapy for everyone. Thepoint here is that the psychoanalytic disciplinary space—which has been,to some extent, ‘successful’ for me— does not operate separately from theother understandings of space discussed in this paper: I have beenimmersed in the disciplinary space because I have also been immersed inall the psychoanalytic spatialities described in the paper. In otherwords, although psychoanalysis is obviously not needed to be able toleave the house, even in a depressive state, I physically went outbecause I had to attend sessions, access its normative space and thedesire to ‘touch’ emotional and relational spaces. In this sense, theroom operated as a therapeutic landscape for me.

This example may also be conceptualized as a case of transformation ofthe self linked to the ability to develop emotional contact between theself and other bodies. Because feeling is not only or not entirelypersonal and individual, emotions emerge between similar bodies, humanand trans-human (cf. Thrift 2008), for example between myself andexternal space. As discussed by Ahmed (2008), drawing on Spinoza,emotions shape ‘the very surfaces of bodies’; they take shape throughrepeated action over time and shape our orientations towards and awayfrom others. Emotions shape what bodies can do, and the capacity ofemotions to modify our attitudes and actions towards others may take theform of empowerment or disempowerment, freedom or constraint as it shapesour potential ways of being and acting. The positionality of the self isunderstood here as a relational concept, connected to particular place-specific settings which emerge, for example, through relations with otherpeople and events, whether these are present here and now or located inthe ‘there and then’ (Conradson 2003; Rose 1997). The transformativespace of psychoanalysis is therefore contemporary relational, emotional,symbolic, actual and potential (and potentially ‘transformative’).

19

Conclusions: is there anybody out there?

The paper has provided an empirical mapping of six conceptually distinctand interrelated spaces of psychoanalytic therapies: physical, emotional,relational, imagined, disciplinary and dream spaces. The possibility toalleviate pain and modify contact with everyday experiences and relationsthrough psychoanalysis—specifically through the construction of what hasbeen called ‘transformative space’—and hence the mechanics of the room asa therapeutic landscape have been related to the possibility ofmobilizing and transferring ideas developed on the couch betweendifferent relational, emotional, symbolical and imaginative spaces. Inthis sense, the theory proposed here is that psychoanalytic therapy isdeeply spatial, and in particular, it implies the development of a‘transformative space’. Echoing Massey (2005) and her relationalconception of space, it has been argued that transformative space isinherently relational, open-ended and heterogeneous. Transformativespaces support the development of alternative trajectories for the self,alternative contacts with the Other and alternative symbolizations andinterpretations of individual and collective experiences.

Second, this analysis has explored an autobiographical methodology as atool to investigate emotions in psychoanalytic therapy. In particular,through the mobilization of ideas about psychoanalytic therapy within myfield of study, I have chosen an emotional contact with the researchobject; writing this paper has helped me reconnect with emotions. Ofcourse, this is very personal, and hence the provocative title of thisconcluding section.

Finally, the reflections outlined in the paper may stimulate furtherlines of research on the micro-geographies of psychoanalysis andpsychotherapy as well as other forms of therapeutic practice. Spatialconcepts and spatial perspectives pervade the psychoanalytic setting inseveral ways which have been merely touched on in this paper. Furtherinvestigations might therefore focus on the concepts of presence andabsence in psychoanalytic therapy; the central and marginal position ofemotions in the construction of the psychoanalytic therapeutic landscape;the power relations affecting psychoanalysis and their relation withemotions and the scalar connections between the couch and the global, forexample by exploring the contribution of psychotherapy to the developmentof emotional relations with objects and subjects in different spaces andacross different scales.

20

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Annalisa Colombino, Elisa Bignante, MarcoSantangelo, Ugo Rossi, the Editor and the anonymous Referees for their friendlysupport and Carlo Brosio for our therapeutic landscape.

Endnotes

1. It has to be mentioned that the diffusion of psychoanalytic ideas ingeography has been characterized by notable absences: for example the lack ofJungian and post-Freudian perspectives (Callard 2003).

2. Industrial geography may certainly be investigated and discussed with passionand personal participation. My autobiographical story shows that I graduallymoved towards more ‘emotionally involved’ and ‘emotionally exposed’ objectsand research methods; this reveals a strong link between the professional andthe emotional. Prior to my difficulty with social relations, I was interestedchiefly in social and political phenomena which I investigated withethnographic methods and qualitative research tools such as interviews. Morerecently, with my growing discomfort with social interactions, I shifted tonon-human objects (e.g. videogame culture or analysis of policy documents);this was arguably a way to work around my difficulty with inter-personalrelations. Of course, this article moves in the same direction.

21

References

Ahmed, S. (2008) Sociable happiness, Emotion, Space and Society 1: 10-3.

Anderson, B (2006) Becoming and being hopeful: towards a theory of affect,

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24: 733–52.

Andrews, G. J. (2004) (Re)thinking the dynamics between healthcare and place:

therapeutic geographies in treatment and care practices, Area 36: 307-318.

Alaszewski, A. (2006) Using Diaries for Social Research. London: Sage.

Banks, A. (2003) Autobiography and cultural geography. Using personal experience

to form research, in Blunt, A., Gruffudd, P., May, J., Ogborn, M. and

Pinder, D. (eds) Cultural Geography in Practice. Hodder, London, pp. 88-90.

Bell, M. (1999) Rehabilitating middle England: Integrating ecology, aesthetics,

and ethics, in Williams A. (ed) Therapeutic Landscapes. Ashgate, Burlington,

pp. 15-27.

Bennett, K. (2009) Challenging emotions, Area 21: 244-251.

Bingley, A. (2003) In here and out there: sensations between Self and landscape,

Social & Cultural Geography 4: 329-345.

Bondi, L. (1999) Stages on journeys: some remarks about human geography and

psychotherapeutic practice, Professional Geographer 51: 11–24.

Bondi, L. (2003) Meaning-making and its framings: A response to Stuart Oliver,

Social & Cultural Geography 4: 323-327.

Bondi, L. (2005) Making connections and thinking through emotions: between

geography and psychotherapy, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30:

433–448.

Bondi, L. (2009) Psychotherapy/Psychotherapeutic Geographies, in Kitchin, R. and

Thrift, N. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Elsevier, Amsterdam,

pp. 495-500.

Bondi L. (2013) Research and Therapy: Generating Meaning and Feeling Gaps,

Qualitative Inquiry 19: 9-19.

Bondi, L. and Fewell, J. (2003) 'Unlocking the cage door': the spatiality of

counselling, Social & Cultural Geography 4: 527-547.

Botticelli, S. (2004) The Politics of Relational Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic

Dialogues: The International Journal of Relational Perspectives 14: 635-651.

Boyatzis, R. (1998) Transforming qualitative information: thematic analysis and code development.

London: Sage.

22

Callard, F. (2003) The taming of psychoanalysis in geography, Social & Cultural

Geography 4: 295-312.

Callon, M. and Law, J. (2004) Introduction: absence - presence, circulation, and

encountering in complex space, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22:

3.11.

Casey, E.S. (2001) Between geography and philosophy: What does it mean to be in

the place-world?, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91: 683-693.

Coffey, A. (2004) Autobiography, in Lewis-Beck, M.S., Bryman, A. and Liao, T.F.

(eds), The Sage Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods, Sage, London, pp. 45-

46.

Conradson, D. (2003) Spaces of care in the city: the place of a community drop-

in centre, Social & Cultural Geography 4: 507-525.

Conradson , D. (2007) The experiential economy of stillness: places of retreat

in contemporary Britain, in Williams A. (ed) Therapeutic Landscapes. Ashgate,

Burlington, pp. 33-48.

Cresswell, T. (1996) In Place/Out Place. Geography, Ideology, and Transgression. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.

Curti, G.H., Aitken, S.C., Bosco, F.J. and Goerisch, D.D. (2011) For not

limiting emotional and affectual geographies: a collective critique of

Steve Pile’s ‘Emotions and affect in recent human geography’, Transactions of

the Institute of British Geographers 36: 590-594.

Davidson, J., Bondi, L. Smith, M. (eds) (2005) Emotional Geographies. Aldershot:

Ashgate.

Deleuze, G. (1988) Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. San Francisco: City Light.

Duff, C. (2010) On the role of affect and practice in the production of place,

Environment and Planning D 28: 881-895.

Evans, J.D., Crooks, V.A. and Kingsbury, P.T. (2009) Theoretical injections: On

the therapeutic aesthetics of medical spaces, Social Science & Medicine 69: 716-

721.

Gagen, E.A. and Linehan, D. (2006) From soul to psyche: historical geographies

of psychology and space, Environment and Planning D 25: 791-797.

Gastaldo, D., Andrews, G. J. and Khanlou, N. (2004) Therapeutic landscapes of

the mind: theorizing some intersections between health geography, health

promotion and immigration studies, Critical Public Health 14: 157-176.

23

Gesler, W.M. (1992) Therapeutic landscapes: Medical issues in light of the new

cultural geography, Social Science and Medicine 34: 735-746.

Gesler, W.M. (2000) Hans Castorp’s journey - to - knowledge of disease and

health in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, Health & Place 6: 125-134.

Gould, P. (1978) Cultivating the garden: a commentary and critique on some

multidimensional speculations, in Golledge, R.G. and Rushton, G. (eds)

Spatial Choice and Spatial Behavior: Geographic Essays on the Analysis of Preferences and

Perceptions. Ohio State University Press, Columbus, pp. 83–91

Healy, S. (2010) Traversing fantasies, activating desires: economic geography,

activist research, and psychoanalytic methodology, The Professional Geographer

62: 496-506.

Hoyez, A.C. (2007) From Rishikesh to Yogaville: the globalization of therapeutic

landscapes, in Williams, A. (ed) Therapeutic Landscapes, Ashgate, Burlington,

pp. 49-64 .

Jones, M. (2009) Phase space: geography, relational thinking, and beyond,

Progress in Human Geography 33: 487-506.

Kingsbury, P.T. (2003) Psychoanalysis, a gay spatial science?, Social & Cultural

Geography 4: 347-367.

Kingsbury, P.T. (2004) Psychoanalytic approaches, in Duncan J.S., Johnson, N.C.,

and Schein, R.H. (eds.) A Companion to Cultural Geography. Blackwell, Oxford, pp.

108-120.

Kingsbury, P.T. (2009) Psychoanalytic theory/psychoanalytic geographies, in

Kitchin R. and Thrift N. (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography,

Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 487-494.

Kingsbury P.T. (2010) Locating the Melody of the Drives, The Professional Geographer

62: 519-533.

Lim, J. (2007) Queer critique and the politics of affect, in Browne, K., Lim, J.

and Brown, G. (eds.) Geographies of Sexualities : Theory, Practices, and Politics, Ashgate,

Aldershot, pp. 53-67.

Massey D. (2005), For Space. London: Sage.

Mercer, D. (2007) The dangers of autobiographical research: A response to

Purcell, Antipode 39: 571–578.

Meth, P. (2003) Entries and omissions: using solicited diaries in geographic

research, Area 35: 195–205.

24

Morrison, C.-A. (2012) Solicited diaries and the everyday geographies of

heterosexual love and home: reflections on methodological process and

practice, Area 44: 68-75.

Moss, P. (2001) Engaging autobiography, in Moss, P. (ed.) Placing Autobiography in

Geography, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse (NY), pp. 188-198.

Nast, H. (2000) Mapping the 'unconscious': Racism and the Oedipal family, Annals

of the Association of American Geographers 90: 215-255.

Oliver, S. (2003) Geography's difficult engagement with the psychological

therapies, Social & Cultural Geography 4: 313-321.

Palka, E. (1999) Accessible wilderness as a therapeutic landscape: experiencing

the nature of Denali National Park, in Williams A. (ed) Therapeutic Landscapes:

The Dynamics Between Place and Wellness, University Press of America, Lanham , pp.

29-51.

Philo, C. and Parr, H. (2003) Introducing psychoanalytic geographies, Social &

Cultural Geography 4: 283-293.

Pile, S. (1991) Practising interpretative geography, Transactions of the Institute of

British Geographers 16: 458-469.

Pile, S. (1996) The Body and the City: Psychoanalysis, Space and Subjectivity. London:

Routledge.

Pile, S. (2005) Real Cities. Modernity, Space and the Phantasmagorias of City Life. London: Sage.

Pile, S. (2010a) Intimate Distance: The Unconscious Dimensions of the Rapport

Between Researcher and Researched, The Professional Geographer 62: 483-495.

Pile, S. (2010b) Emotions and affect in recent human geography, Transactions of the

Institute of British Geographers 35: 5-20.

Pratt, G. and Rosner, V. (2006) Introduction: the global & the intimate, Women’s

Studies Quarterly 34: 13-24.

Proudfoot, J. (2010) Interviewing enjoyment, or the limits of discourse, The

Professional Geographer 62: 507-518.

Purcell, M. (2009) Autobiography, in Kitchin R. and Thrift, N. (eds.) International

Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 234-239.

Robinson, J. (2000) Feminism and the spaces of transformation, Transactions of the

Institute of British Geographers 16: 458-469.

25

Rose, G. (1996) As if the mirrors had bled: Masculine dwelling, masculinist

theory and the feminist masquerade, in Duncan N. (ed.) Bodyspace: Destabilizing

Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, Routledge, New York, pp. 56-74.

Rose, G (1997) Situating knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities, and other

tactics, Progress in Human Geography 21: 305–320.

Rose, G. (1999). Performing space. In Massey, D., Allen, J. & Sarre, P.

(eds.)Human Geography Today, pp 247 259. Cambridge: Polity.

Sack, R.D. (1997) Homo Geographicus: A Framework for Action, Awareness, and Moral Concern.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.

Shields, R. (2003), The Virtual. London: Routledge.

Sibley, D. (1995) Geographies of Exclusion. New York: Routledge.

Sibley, D. (2003) Geography and psychoanalysis: tensions and possibilities,

Social & Cultural Geography 4: 391-399.

Smith, M., Davidson, J., Cameron, L. and Bondi, L. (eds) (2009) Emotion, Place and

Culture. Farnham: Ashgate.

Tamas, S. and Wyatt, J. (2013) Telling, Qualitative Inquiry 19: 60-66.

Thomas, M.E. (2010) Introduction: Psychoanalytic methodologies in geography, The

Professional Geographer 62: 478-482.

Thrift, N. (2008) Non-representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge.

Wachtel, E.A. (1980) Visions of Order. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, New York

University

Williams, A.M. (2010) Therapeutic landscapes as health promoting places, in

Brown T., McLafferty, S. and Moon G. (eds), A Companion to Health and Medical

Geography, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, MA, pp. 207-223.

Wilton R.D. (2003) Locating physical disability in Freudian and Lacanian

psychoanalysis: Problems and prospects, Social & Cultural Geography 4: 369-389.

Wyatt, J. and Tamas, S. (2013) Intimate (Dis)connections: Research, Therapy, and

“Real” Life, Qualitative Inquiry 19: 3-8.

26