ABSTRACT
There are certain aspects of working four dimensionally I should like to consider, although they may be regarded as questionable deviations from orthodox technique. The first is the use of silence. A number of writers have suggested that psychoanalysis has overlooked its value. Andrea Sabbadini wrote an expressive essay on the many kinds of silence that can flower within the session (Sabbadini 1991). Michael Del Monte (1995) compared it to the therapeutic use of meditation, in that it allows the analyst ample time to explore his counter transference. While language is among the greatest of human accomplishments, when it comes to the deepest issues of our lives speech finally fails; it even ‘defiles’, as the Zen teacher Daie remarked:
To talk about mind or nature is defiling, to talk about the unfathomable or the mysterious is defiling; to practise meditation or tranquillization is defiling; to direct one’s attention to it, to think about it is defiling; to be writing about it thus on paper with a brush is especially defiling.
