Seeing Sameness… Seeing Difference

In October I will be speaking at a conference in Vancouver about the importance of difference. While this might sound like a discussion about identity politics, but for me this is not about politics in psychoanalysis or in therapy (I’ll happily talk about that too), but about ethics. The ethical foundation of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy rarely gets discussed directly in the consultation room, but the analyst’s or therapist’s ethics tacitly inform the entire relationship.

Many of us imagine that a sense of being understood, of feeling seen, coincides with a sense of similitude. It feels as if we are “alike,” if we “get” each other, that we can “identify” with one another. There’s no question in my mind that these are really good feelings and experiences. These “moments of meeting” make us feel less alone in the world.

But it has become something of a standard assumption that in order to be understood we have to be sitting with someone who is “like” us. Underlying this assumption is the idea that when we see ourselves in someone, or they can see themselves in us, we will find a foundational “sameness,” a commonality that allows for a closeness and understanding. So, we look for therapist who remind us of ourselves, who we believe will be able to “relate” to our issues because they have shared them. Implicit in this belief is the idea that similarity breeds understanding, that likeness or sameness brings us together. I describe this as the “ethics of sameness,” and it can inform a significant portion of our dynamics with people.

While I understand the attraction of this position, I want to advocate for an “ethics of difference.” What does that mean, and what does it look like in the consultation room?

In my work I speak to and want to know about what each one of my patients sees in him or herself, what they want me to see about them. We work to find a way to build bridges of meaning and relationship between those places in each of us that are not so easily matched and met. My ethical responsibility is to listen from a place of respect for the integrity and absolute individuality of each person who sits with me, to try to understand them as they want to be understood. This means I cannot assume that I will understand because we are “alike,” or because I can “identify” with them, but that I must learn to understand because we are not alike and it is my responsibility, on a profound ethical level, to find that understanding.

It is easy to look for how we are all alike. It is hard for us to live with the ways that we are often very different. Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy help us make life better… we need that help when things are hard. Difference is hard. Finding a way to think about difference, to allow it into the consultation room so it can find productive expression in the lives we live, is one of the goals I share with the people I work with.