What Makes Art Therapeutic? with Adele Tutter

Summary

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Psychoanalysis & You

Episode Summary:

What Makes Art Therapeutic?
Guest: Dr. Adele Tutter
Host: Dr. Gail Saltz (American Psychoanalytic Association)
Recorded: November 29, 2023

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Gail Saltz interviews Dr. Adele Tutter—psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and Columbia professor—on the deep connections between creativity, personal history, and the therapeutic power of art. The conversation examines how both artists and analysts process trauma, transformation, and grief, using creative expression as a means of healing. Dr. Tutter draws from her own scholarship on diverse creators, including Philip Johnson, Josef Sudek, Francesca Woodman, Raymond Carver, and Alexander McQueen, to illuminate how art, biography, and psychoanalysis intersect.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Chance Encounters & Artistic Curiosity

[01:16-04:12]

• Dr. Tutter describes her process for choosing artistic subjects:
  • She often starts from "chance encounters" that spark curiosity and lead to deeper investigation.
  • Example: A visit to the Glass House (Philip Johnson) where a single Old Master painting was displayed in sunlight, despite the presence of climate-controlled art galleries on the premises.
  • This curiosity drove her essays and eventually a book, illustrating the psychoanalytic principle of following associations.
• Quote: “One of the funny things about psychoanalysis is that it teaches you to follow your nose and to follow associations.” (Dr. Tutter, [03:35])

2. The Role of Artist Biography in Understanding Art

[04:16-05:48]

• Dr. Tutter foregrounds the importance of biographical context in psychoanalytic art criticism:
  • Unlike traditional art history, she insists that understanding the artist’s life is crucial to grasping the meaning of their work.
  • She counters academic trends that discouraged “contaminating” art with biography.
• Quote: "It’s the biographical data that helps you to understand the significance of that work of art to the maker." (Dr. Tutter, [05:07])

3. The Viewer’s Mind & Personal Connections

[06:06-07:01]

• Both creator and viewer bring their unique histories and unconscious associations to art.
• Dr. Tutter illustrates this with her own childhood—her father’s love of trees deeply affected which works resonated with her, especially those by Josef Sudek and Francesca Woodman.

4. Case Study: Josef Sudek’s Photography as Trauma Processing

[07:01-09:47]

• Dr. Tutter unpacks Sudek’s lifelong project of photographing trees as metaphor for his own trauma (the loss of his right arm).
  • Trees serve as proxies for human experience: “We have feet that sit on the ground, we are rooted...we have limbs, we bear fruit, and we senesce and we die.”
  • Sudek’s imagery ranges from mutilated, limbless trees to those rejuvenated with new growth, paralleling his journey from denial to aesthetic transformation.
• Quote: "He used his creativity as a way to mitigate the loss of his limb." (Dr. Tutter, [08:14])
• Quote: “It’s almost as if he’s gone from denying the trauma...to gradually accepting the reality, but also mitigating the reality through the aesthetic transformation.” (Dr. Tutter, [09:25])

5. Art as a Vehicle for Working Through Personal Struggles

[09:48-12:11]

• The analytic process of following subtle details in an artist’s work can reveal unconscious truths or emotional evolution—exemplified by Dr. Tutter’s study of Raymond Carver.
  • Carver’s use of “fire” evolves from destructive imagery to a generative, life-sustaining symbol, mirroring his personal transformation.
• Quote: “It traces an evolution in him of a kind of a destructive rage into a more gentle, generative life preoccupation.” (Dr. Tutter, [11:51])

6. The Multiplicity & Transformation of Artistic Themes

[12:11-13:10]

• Key psychoanalytic idea: Artistic motifs hold multiple, shifting meanings over time.
• Dr. Tutter notes Carver’s enduring, complicated love for his first wife as revealed through his fiction.
• Quote: “Meaning can change and transform. Yes.” (Dr. Tutter, [12:31])

7. Engaging Creativity Therapeutically in Analysis

[13:10-14:46]

• Modern analysts now encourage patients to bring creative work into treatment, seeing it as a valid and revealing mode of self-expression.
• For some patients, discussing art or cultural works is the least anxiety-provoking entry into therapy.
• Quote: “I always encourage my patients to show me what they are working on... it was a way for them to relax and be less nervous about it.” (Dr. Tutter, [14:16])

8. Transference, Criticism, and the Analyst’s Identity

[14:46-15:52]

• Patients aware of Dr. Tutter’s work sometimes withhold their own creations until they're validated by publication, echoing dynamics of parental criticism.
• The analyst’s perceived authority as a critic can be an important transference object in therapy.
• Quote: “There’s always a critical mother or critical father, for sure. Yes.” (Dr. Tutter, [15:39])

9. Fashion as Art: Alexander McQueen

[16:06-17:49]

• McQueen’s fashion is analyzed as transformative, deeply expressive of vulnerability and a wish for self-protection and metamorphosis.
  • His designs serve as “body armor” reflecting an “exceptionally sensitive, vulnerable person.”
  • After the death of his mother, to whom he was very close, McQueen died by suicide.
• Quote: “His fashion is all about transformation itself. It’s about using clothes to transform the person within into something else.” (Dr. Tutter, [16:38])
• Quote: “There is certainly in his work a kind of a theme of body armor almost. And I think that tells us a lot about an extremely vulnerable self.” (Dr. Tutter, [17:09])

10. Writing as Personal Transformation

[18:02-20:46]

• Dr. Tutter shares her own experience writing about grief, trauma, and the Czech heritage she shares with some artists she studies.
  • She sees writing itself as a way to process and “find my way through my grief and my inherited grief.”
  • Cross-generational trauma, displacement, and the power of art to reconnect with lost histories are highlighted.
• Quote: “I think that in writing about artists and their grief, it’s helped me find my way through my grief and my inherited grief.” (Dr. Tutter, [20:24])
• Quote: “Writing is also somewhat miraculous in that sense.” (Host, [20:47])

11. Analyst Self-Disclosure & Therapeutic Collaboration

[20:46-21:56]

• Dr. Tutter values authenticity and self-disclosure, believing it enhances the therapeutic relationship and aids self-understanding for both analyst and patient.
• Quote: “The work that we do in the consulting room, it’s also beneficial for me...It can be difficult, but it’s almost always humbling and that’s a good thing.” (Dr. Tutter, [21:46])

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Notable Quotes

• “One of the funny things about psychoanalysis is that it teaches you to follow your nose and to follow associations.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([03:35])
• “If you’re interested in the relationship between the artist and their art, you need to consider their life and what they’ve said and what they’ve told people.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([05:26])
• “He used his creativity as a way to mitigate the loss of his limb.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([08:14])
• “Meaning can change and transform. Yes.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([12:31])
• “I always encourage my patients to show me what they are working on or what they’re thinking about.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([14:11])
• “His fashion is all about transformation itself. It’s about using clothes to transform the person within into something else.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([16:38])
• “I think that in writing about artists and their grief, it’s helped me find my way through my grief and my inherited grief.” – Dr. Adele Tutter ([20:24])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:16] – Dr. Tutter describes how she chooses her artistic subjects
• [04:16] – The importance of artist biography in psychoanalytic art criticism
• [07:01] – Josef Sudek’s trees as metaphors for trauma and repair
• [09:48] – The process of analyzing hidden themes (Raymond Carver and “fire”)
• [13:10] – Therapeutic potential of creative activity in analysis
• [14:46] – How patients’ knowledge of Dr. Tutter’s criticism influences therapy
• [16:06] – Analysis of Alexander McQueen and fashion as transformation
• [18:02] – Dr. Tutter’s personal writing and connection to grief
• [20:46] – Role of authenticity and self-disclosure in analysis

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Memorable Moments

• Dr. Tutter’s moving reflection on inherited and personal grief, and how writing about artists enables her to process her own family history ([18:15-20:46]).
• The poignant analysis of Josef Sudek’s portraits, especially the photo in which Sudek’s missing arm is visually “replaced” by a tree branch ([08:48-09:47]).
• The insight that patients may wait to show their artwork to Dr. Tutter until it has external approval, mirroring parental criticism and validation ([15:22-15:52]).

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Art and creativity are deeply intertwined with the personal histories and traumas of both artists and viewers; psychoanalytic exploration of these connections reveals powerful pathways for healing.
• Biographical context enriches our understanding of art and its capacity for transformation.
• Encouraging creative self-expression in therapy can be an effective means to process difficult experiences and emotions, providing analysts and patients alike with opportunities for growth.

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For further information about psychoanalysis and creative process, visit the American Psychoanalytic Association at www.apsa.org.

Transcript

[Dr. Gail Saltz]

Welcome to the podcast of the American Psychoanalytic Association. I'm your host, Dr. Gail Saltz. I'm a psychoanalyst and a psychiatrist and this is psychoanalysis. And you.

[Interviewer/Host]

My guest today is Adele Tutter. She's an associate professor of psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos School of Medicine and is the director of the Psychoanalytic Studies program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In her award winning scholarship, she explores the underpinnings of creativity and the relationship between the artist and their art, including the Glass House designed by architect Philip Johnson, the short stories of Raymond Carver, the photography of Josef Sudek and Francesca Woodman, and the operas of Lyosh Janacek, the fashion of Alexander McQueen and the old master paintings of Nicholas Poussin. Welcome. Thank you for joining me.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Well, thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

[Interviewer/Host]

So this is quite an eclectic group of subjects in different areas of creativity. So how have you chosen the subjects to write about?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Well, they usually start with chance encounters that lead me to be very curious and lead me to ask the question, is there a story here, a story that I can understand? And it really could be anything. So, for example, with Philip Johnson and the Glass House, I was first invited to the Glass House by Dorothy Dunn, who opened the Glass House to the public for the National Trust. She's a good friend and for Christmas she gave me two tickets to tour the Glass House. And when I got there, I was just simply floored, because in the middle of this one story glass House, in which there are no walls and no windows, just walls of glass, in the middle of this house stood an old master painting on an easel. And it had been there since the Glass House was built. And it was blistering and literally blistering in the sun. And it turns out that it had undergone several restorations to try to protect it. And Philip Johnson also had an art museum on actually 2, a painting gallery and a sculpture gallery on the premises of the Glass House with humidity control, temperature control. So why was this old master sitting in the sun? It was also the only old master painting that he owned. And so immediately I wondered, what is the significance of this old master painting that was so important that it be installed in the Glass House and never ever moved. And that led to an essay on precisely that subject, which actually then became three essays and finally became a book. It also led to an interest in Poussin as such that I began to write essays on Poussin. One of the funny things about psychoanalysis is that it teaches you to follow your nose and to follow associations. And so when I began to read about Poussin, in order to make sense of the Poussin in the Glass House, I read about his Ovidian themes. And it turns out that his first and last paintings were on the theme of Apollo and Daphne. And I began to read Ovid and Apollo and Daphne. And that jogged my memory of seeing a remarkable exhibition of photographs by a young woman in 1982, long time ago. And one of the things that she did was she photographed herself with her arms encased in bracelets of birch bark. And I remembered that in conjunction with Apollo and Daphne. And so that was Francesca Woodman. And I returned to her as a subject and ended up writing about her. And so a lot of it has to do with chance, but then also the connections that I make in my mind.

[Interviewer/Host]

So just like a psychoanalyst in their office.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Exactly.

[Interviewer/Host]

Being intensely curious and then following your own associations and do thoughts about the actual life events or early life or evident, let's say, maybe even pathologies or thought process or character of the maker, of the creator, of the artist. Do those come to bear in your work?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Oh, absolutely. And I think that this is one of the ways in which a psychoanalytic approach can sometimes sort of vary from traditional art historical approaches in that I'm intensely interested in the life of the artist and in all of their productions, entire corpus of work, and also the words that they have spoken and written down. I tried to get the whole story of the life behind the art, and that's not always fashionable. For a very long time it was in academia, it was very important to look at the work of art in isolation, as a subject unto itself, and not to, so to speak, contaminate it with biographical data that might sway you as to what you thought about the art. And I really find that it's quite the opposite. It's the biographical data that helps you to understand the significance of that work of art to the maker. So if you're interested in the relationship between the artist and their art, you need to consider their life and what they've said and what they've told people.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you therefore think. And, you know, this is really. I'm just asking what you think as a psychoanalyst, that the maker, they bring, this is their creation from their mind, and we need to understand their mind to further understand their creation.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer/Host]

And then the viewer brings their own mind.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

And how do you understand that, as a psychoanalyst, the impact of that on the viewer?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Well, I think it's huge. And for me, the biggest impact is in my choice of things to study. And so even though there are chance encounters, I have many chance encounters. The ones that grab me have everything to do with what I bring to the work of art. So whether it be something incongruous like this old master painting in the glass house, or Francesca Woodman's work on trees, I grew up with a father who planted 40,000 trees in his lifetime. So for me, trees are very important. And trees also led me to be interested in the photography of Joseph Sudek, who also photographed many trees occupy a huge part of his work.

[Interviewer/Host]

And what was the meaning for him.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Of trees for Sudek? Sudek lost his right arm in World War I, and he lost a limb. And trees have limbs, and trees have always been targets of anthropomorphization. So trees have been used as metaphors for humans for millennia. So we have feet that sit on the ground, we are rooted in our homes, we have limbs, we bear fruit, and we senesce and we die. And we have lifetimes that are remarkably similar sometimes. So Josef Sudek began to photograph trees that were mutilated, that had lost their limbs, sometimes just reduced to stumps. But he also would take pictures of trees that had been rejuvenated, that had grown new sprouts, so to speak. And so for him, he was known to lug his camera, his huge large format camera on wooden legs. He would lug that all over Prague, up and down the hills. And it was almost as if his camera became a replacement limb. And he used his creativity and as a way to mitigate the loss of his limb.

[Interviewer/Host]

So to some degree, these productions, these photographs were a reworking, sometimes perhaps an undoing, a repair of the loss that he had suffered over and over again.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Yes, they were a way for him to process the trauma, for him to rework it and to transform it into a work of aesthetic beauty. In one picture, he poses himself. It's so fascinating, really, as a young photographer just learning his trade. He took a self portrait in which he's turned away so that you can't even see that he's missing an arm. And it's this dapper young gentleman. You'd never know there was anything wrong with him. And then the next self portrait, you see that there's something missing. And then the next self portrait that we see years later, you see him from the side that's missing the arm, and it's so painfully obvious, and yet he's posed himself in front of a tree, and there's a branch that's growing out in the direction of his arm. And it's just so poignant to see, and yet it's also quite sad. So it's almost as if he's gone from denying the trauma by posing himself as though nothing is wrong to gradually accepting the reality, but also mitigating the reality through the aesthetic transformation. And there are multiple examples of this throughout his oeuvre, which is really extremely touching.

[Dr. Gail Saltz]

Wow.

[Interviewer/Host]

Just hearing it is extremely touching. Fascinating metaphor. Is there anything that has really surprised you in what you've uncovered in essentially analyzing these artists and their art?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Yes. And that's what makes this really so enjoyable and so fun and really compelling is that following small details reveals so much. To look at a piece of art and know as a psychoanalyst, that there are truths there, but they're not necessarily transparent. And to delve below the surface and discover things that are really fascinating. So, for example, I began to study Raymond Carver because of an article in the New Yorker that described his relationship with his editor, the notorious Gordon Lish. And so I started analyzing the correspondence between the two of them, and that led to a deep interest in Raymond Carver. My second article on him had to do with his use of his writing short stories as a therapeutic endeavor, a lot like Joseph Sudek. And so what I decided to do was to follow a theme throughout his stories. And I chose the theme fire, because there are so many short stories that include an element of fire. And what was so amazing to see was that at the beginning, fire for him was something that was destructive, something that could destroy things. So, for example, at one point in his life, he threw a whole box of fire starter logs in the fireplace when he came to visit his wife on Thanksgiving, his ex wife and who had been remarried, he came to visit and was so angry that he threw a box of. Of starter logs into the fireplace and there was a huge explosion. And he wrote about that in a short story in disguised form. But by the end of his short story oeuvre, fire has become something Promethean and life saving. It's become a means of warmth. It's a means to survive the cold, so to speak. And so it's changed from. And I think it traces an evolution in him of a kind of a destructive rage into a more gentle, generative life preoccupation.

[Interviewer/Host]

So you can see sort of the individual maker's trajectory. And you also point out that, as we often do find as analysts, something, some theme or some object has more Than one meaning.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Oh, yes. Which is a profoundly psychoanalytic idea. And that meaning can change and transform. Yes. I was really quite stunned to see that evolution in the short story writing, as well as to see that Raymond Carver remained in love with his first wife throughout his life, even though they separated and he remarried. What becomes evident in his short stories is the degree to which he regrets the dissolution of his marriage and this enduring passion for his first love. It's really very romantic and quite sad.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you find, or do you think, I guess I should say, really, that this outlet of creativity, which to some degree you're showing, the ways in which it's therapeutic for these individual artists, is this something that analysts often address in their office with patients encourage in any sort of way as a therapeutic mechanism?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Sure. I think most people would. I think most analysts I know would welcome the analysand or the person in therapy to come and to show them the things that they're working on. That wasn't always so. It used to be that if somebody brought in a picture or a short story, the act of bringing that in would be analyzed and the work of art might not have even been looked at. But I always encourage my patients to show me what they are working on or what they're thinking about. I also want to know about the movie that they've seen. I've had patients who were really not able to talk to me at all unless it was in the context of talking about a book that they were reading or talking about a movie that interested them. And that would be the only way that they could really settle down and be comfortable. Because otherwise it would just be talking about themselves. Not really, I think, understanding that you're always talking about yourself, but it was a way for them to relax and be less nervous about it.

[Interviewer/Host]

So a vehicle, a displaced vehicle, felt more comfortable. And so you do encourage that?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I love seeing and treating creative people.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you think that people seek you out, or at least when they're in treatment with you, become aware of the work you do outside the office?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Yeah, some people do, I think, seek me out precisely because I am interested in art and creativity. For sure.

[Interviewer/Host]

And do you feel that that affects the treatment in one way or another that they know?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Most certainly, because I also have written quite a lot of art criticism, and I think that many times they come more or less aware of a concern that I will be critical of their work.

[Interviewer/Host]

So in a sense, the transference is to what the critical mother. The.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Exactly.

[Interviewer/Host]

And that is something you work With.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

[Interviewer/Host]

And is it usually because there is a critical mother in their background?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

There's always a critical mother or critical father, for sure. Yes. I've had people in my practice who would not show me works until they were published and therefore had the stamp of approval.

[Interviewer/Host]

Interesting. Yes. That makes a lot of sense. I did want to touch on Alexander McQueen because of course, I think most of the lay public would not think of fashion as something that is art.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

It certainly can be.

[Interviewer/Host]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

It certainly can be. And I think that that is more and more fashion as an art historical discipline is far more accepted. The Alexander McQueen that I saw was a show at the Metropolitan in the Fashion Institute.

[Interviewer/Host]

And of course, he had a very, very sad ending.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Oh, terribly sad.

[Interviewer/Host]

How did his. From an artistic point of view, what did you come to understand about his psyche and his life and his death? Be it his fashion?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

His fashion is all about transformation itself. It's about using clothes to transform the person within into something else. And sometimes these were just wild, fantastical creatures sort of metamorphosed. So in one case, there is. It's not even an item of clothing. It's an item, I guess you could call it of adornment. It's like an external spine that leads to this rather long, spiky tail, evocative of a dinosaur with an armature. And so I think that there is certainly in his work a kind of a theme of body armor almost. And I think that that tells us a lot about an extremely vulnerable self. And as most people know, he committed suicide after the death of his mother. And he was very close to her. I don't know that much. You know, I should know more about their relationship. But the art certainly brings to mind an exceptionally sensitive, vulnerable person who was not happy in his own body.

[Interviewer/Host]

So this was a wish fulfillment?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

To create these armors and dormanted transformations.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

It was a wish fulfillment. It was a defense. Absolutely. And the designs are so fantastical and so monumental. They speak to a wish for self transformation.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you personally write, create in some way that you find is transformational for you? Are your productions parts of your mind in a way that.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Oh, yes. Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Like these artists that you write about.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Sure, sure. And one chapter that I've written in a book that I edited on grief, because I'm very interested in the use of creativity to process not only trauma, but the trauma that we all experience, which is grief. And I wrote a chapter in my own edited volume that I edited with. I was a co editor with Leon Wormser. The late Leon Wormser, so absolutely amazing and wonderful person. I wrote a chapter about. About Janacek, the composer, and Sudek and my father, who was also like them, from the Czech Republic, from a small town in the Czech Republic, which is one of the reasons why I was drawn to Janacek and Sudek, because they were Czech, as I mentioned, Sudek lost his right arm in the war. And Janacek wrote a piece of work for a young man who was a pianist who also lost his right arm in the war. And he wrote a piano concerto for orchestra and piano, left hand only. This is just one example of a kind of a resonance between Sudek and Janacek. Janacek lost both of his children when they were young from illness and was childless. Sudek was childless. I could go on and on, but they both suffered a tremendous loss. And my father also suffered tremendous loss because he was essentially forced to escape from the Czech Republic in 1948 because he was a political dissident and there had been an attempt on his life. And so he just fled on foot, leaving his entire family behind and eventually making his way, of course, to Brooklyn, where else would he come? And that's where I grew up. But I grew up in the context of this terrible loss. My mother also had lost both of her parents and was an orphan. And so when they met, they clicked, but it left a legacy of grief. And so I think that in writing about artists and their grief, it's helped me find my way through my grief and my inherited grief. In 1989, when the Wall came down, my father was able to go back to the Czech Republic and establishment connections to his family again. And it was sort of like a miracle, really. And so I think for me, writing.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is also somewhat miraculous in that sense, would you say? You know, to me, that sounds like an amazing example of that. What we do in the consulting room as psychoanalysts is really not just we treat a patient, but it's a collaboration of our own experiences and our understanding of our own experiences and our training and the understanding of another's experiences. Yes.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

And I think that there has been so much development in understanding the importance of the role of that relationship and of being an authentic and real person in the room. To that end, I offer more disclosure than most orthodox analysts. My patients usually know more about my life, but that feels right for me, and I think it feels right for them. And, you know, it's very much, I think, a case of physician, heal thyself. The work that we do in the consulting room, it's also beneficial for me. It helps me to understand myself and my reactions to people. It can be difficult, but it's almost always humbling and that's a good thing.

[Interviewer/Host]

Thank you so much for joining me today.

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Oh, well, thank you. I've enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

[Interviewer/Host]

Thank you for having you, Dr. Adele Tutter.

[Dr. Gail Saltz]

And now for some Freudian quickies. You sent in your questions for an analyst and I grabbed an analyst with an answer. Has anyone had a perfectly balanced non traumatic childhood?

[Analyst 1]

No, I don't believe so.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay.

[Analyst 1]

We've all been injured more or less in different ways. Those of us who've had loving parents without too much conflict are very lucky. But the human condition is that we are injured people and that's okay. That's who we are. We have the gift of life and that transcends everything. And function of therapy is to help us live life when some of the stuff from our childhood gets in the way.

[Analyst 2]

Has anyone had a perfectly balanced non traumatic childhood? I think this idea, and I've been seeing it all over social media lately, of like, what's considered trauma? Everything's considered trauma. Nothing's considered trauma. Like who is the definer of what trauma is? And I think we've all heard the comparison that like two people can be born in the same household and have the same exact experience, but they might have a very, very different reaction or a very different developmental trajectory because of it. And so, and so I think, I guess I would say no, there is no normal.

[Dr. Gail Saltz]

Has anyone had a perfectly balanced non traumatic childhood?

[Dr. Adele Tutter]

Absolutely. I haven't met them yet, but absolutely.

[Dr. Gail Saltz]

If you have a question, really any question for a psychoanalyst, please please send it to apsapodcastmail.com and we will try to feature it in a future Freudian quickie. For more information about the American Psychoanalytic association, go to www.apsa.org. till next time. Thank you for listening in today here at Psychoanalysis and you'd and we at the American Psychoanalytic Institute hope to introduce you to the many ways psychoanalytic thought affects the world around us, and especially you. Please leave any comments and requests for [e-mail] if you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with a friend or colleague and we will be back next month with another episode of Psychoanalysis and you.