Spirituality Studies 10-2 Fall 2024 29 Jeffrey Katzman, Ben Bernstein, Matthew Ponak tions generally and Jewish mysticism specifically that the Self is in a dynamic process over a lifetime, with a continued unfolding through experiences with representations of Ein Sof. Like layers of an onion, one continues to reach new experiences – the discovery of the Self is just this – a process. Rather than discovering a distinct entity that will provide an answer to life’s mystery, the Self is contained within the ongoing process of connection with a greater force. The Self is the process. In classic rabbinic study, the Torah is seen mostly for its interpretive meaning. What it is on the surface is an invitation to delve deeper and discover. The idea of a drash involves just this very process – deeper understandings of Biblical texts to reach new unfolding understandings, paralleling an approach to the experience of an unfolding and constantly maturing Self (Ish-Shalom 2017, 16). Perhaps the Self, like the Torah, simply calls us to a journey of understanding where the deepening inquiry itself, not the final realization, is the point, where it is more about walking the path itself than arriving at any particular destination. And ultimately, psychotherapy might be considered the collaborative journey of this. The objective may not be to discover some ultimate truth or map of ourselves but to enter into the discovery process with another person. Perhaps this process itself has the capacity to lead to an experience of authenticity and something closer to what is real in any given moment. 3 An Expanding Understanding: The Self in Relation Building upon our metaphor of the stuffed Rabbit, we understand that a sense of becoming alive comes through relationality. In a sense, a Self without relatedness can be seen as a stuffed plaything in a closet, waiting to join the world. The journey from the store to the external world involves a life of contact with others ultimately impacting the Self. This comes in the story through experiences with other toys as well as with the Boy – sometimes loving and sometimes difficult to bear – though always impacting the growth of the Rabbit toward becoming alive. It is the ultimate contact with the spiritual, the relationship with the energy of the Garden Fairy, that guides the Self in the story toward becoming real. While the idea of a reified Self existing somewhere within the mind of the individual is useful, particularly to navigate through difficult feelings and perceptions, it may fall short in the quest to experience oneself as genuine, authentic, or real. Descriptions of the Self as a concrete, intrapsychic unit can be understood as falling short of the reality of our ultimate connection to the community of subjectivities in which we all find ourselves. Is there even an individual Self that is separate from the connections that one experiences, in the past, present, or future imagination? 3.1 Psychoanalytic Relational Paradigm The intersubjective paradigm within psychoanalysis led by Stolorow, Atwood, and Brandchaft, emphasized the idea that we inevitably live in a complex matrix of intersubjective connections. Our selves are a process both of our own experience and how we are impacted by those around us at any given moment. This creates a challenge for the idea of a solitary, isolated mind (Stolorow 2002, 52). In this ever-evolving relational field of psychoanalysis, the unit of interest is not an individual Self, per se, but how that Self is impacted within the matrix or relationality. An individual brings a particular set of experiences and feelings to a particular moment, joined by those of another, and together they create a unique intersubjective field unlike any that has come before or can follow. We exist within these fields and may be changed by them. Fields of psychotherapy that ignore the impact of the experience of the therapist miss this very point. Akin to the ideas of the uncertainty principle, the observed can only be understood through the lens of the observer: we impact everything we see. Both our understanding of another and the way they are interacting is impacted by who we are. To understand ourselves as solitary selves misses the truth of our ultimate connection, and to try to parse a self-understanding independent of the impact of the matrix of ongoing relationality is ultimately a limited exercise. 3.2 Family Systems It is similarly worth considering the ideas of Murray Bowen in this context, it is critical to understand that the Self always exists within a matrix of relationships. The more we appreciate this, the more we differentiate ourselves. Ultimately, we live within a series of connections – a complex web of our relationships with family members, the history of these family members, our ongoing work experiences, and influences from community and society. So that if an individual begins to yell at his son, for example, this may actually represent anger projected upon him by his own mother, or a fellow employee, or an interaction in the mar-
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