Episode 058: 'To Make a Meaningful Life': Reflections on a Life in Psychoanalysis with Melvin Bornstein, MD

Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch

“Once we put things together and express them to somebody, something happens. We become more alive - because we are expressing what we are expressing in terms of what is real and what is real is not static. What is real is continuously moving and what is real is the experience of everything moving and everything changing from minute to minute.”

Description: Dr. Harvey Schwartz welcomes Dr. Melvin Bornstein, who is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. He is also the editor of the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Dr. Bornstein is one of the elders in psychoanalysis. In today´s episode, he describes with passionate detail his experiences over the past many decades of practice. He also shares with us what this current period of uncertainty is like for him and he expresses the leitmotif of his work and his life in what he calls the “love of life”.

Key takeaways:

[5:10] What this period of life has been like for Dr. Bornstein?

[8:27] Dr. Bornstein discuses Albert Camus’ The Plague.

[10:41] The power of talking to one another and sharing each one’s suffering, pain, and fear.

[12:53] The psychoanalytic process allows us to do something about what is happening that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

[14:01] Dr. Bornstein shares his experience free-associating every morning while exercising on his stationary bike.

[17:00] Dr. Bornstein talks about his path and where he comes from.

[18:56] What is real is not static, is continuously moving.

[20:33] Dr. Bornstein describes the most difficult experience from his childhood.

[22:58] Dr. Bornstein shares an early clinical situation.

[29:32] The immersion of Dr. Bornstein in the psychoanalytic work.

[31:52] The driving element is the love of life.

[35:33] The difficulty of some patients in owning their love.

Mentioned in this episode:

IPA Off the Couch www.ipaoffthecouch.org