ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explains a poem by psychoanalyst Robert Stolorow. She asked her readers to suspend the expectation of scholarly tone and method usually found in psychoanalytic journals. Therapist and patient are collaborators in telling a story; some have been told a hundred times, and yet have never been told. Analysis is mutual storytelling. One thing for sure, when one change the story, they change the storyteller. Writing helps formulate chaotic fragments into a story. Some patients come into treatment without a story, and part of psychoanalysts work as analysts is finding a cohesive narrative. Writing can take the split-off parts of themselves, the dissociated parts, and bring those disowned parts into awareness. Another poem, rather than capturing the carefree innocence of childhood, portrays instead childhood memories that are a time of dark hours, scary shadows, and harrowing obstacles.
