Unity
Unity

Summary/Abstract: As a psychoanalyst I spend a great deal of time exploring and analyzing the very human problems surrounding identity, separation/ individuation, and, predominantly, the difficulties and obstructions to making what is unconscious, conscious. Yet recalling that blissful state of undifferentiated merger that was ours in childhood – and that can be ours again, fleetingly, in the arts, in nature, listening to music, in deep concentration, or during orgasm – I sometimes question the benefits of this touted ‘consciousness,’ and wonder if it isn’t over rated! I sit in a tiny office, part of my New York Institute, which I call my analytic “cell” and ponder what advantages there are in being so “separate” and conscious. It has been my experience, in fact, that it is when body and mind, and I and ‘thou,’ are most united, that we experience those moments of greatest transcendence and deepest joy in this life. We do not leave the Garden of Eden, and walk out into ‘consciousness’, without incurring a significant loss!

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