by Lisa Koshkarian, Ph.D.

JAGGED TEETH

A free-standing chalkboard was stationed in the psychoanalytic institute library where my mom volunteered on weekends. Accompanying her one Saturday after watching the movie Jaws, I drew a giant shark on the board with jagged teeth and sweeping lines indicating ocean waves. The following weekend my image remained—albeit accompanied by a large caption in bold letters: “CASTRATION COMPLEX!” Innocently, I asked my mom and another volunteer what it meant. They snickered, fumbling over words. Looking back, I imagine that whoever wrote that knew the image was drawn by a child, yet nevertheless succumbed to the urge to insert a “clever” interpretation. And the people who ought to have assisted me completely dropped the ball. 

Existing/not-existing in psychoanalytic communities from the start of life lit my reformist fire. Since then, I've sought leaders who advocate for ethical forms of emotional relating. I found in bell hooks’ All About Love: New Visions (2021) a safe home for vulnerability and tenderness. hooks offers a paradigm for love as a radical agent for social justice. Her premise is that certain hegemonic forms of power have twisted, even mutilated how we experience, talk about, and enact love in contemporary society. An ongoing lack of public discussion, policies, and education about the practice of love have entrenched the status quo. As such, values and behaviors such as dominion, superiority, greed, and control underlie all of our systems and influence our interpersonal relationships. As a consequence, dysregulated aggression appears at every level of society while we fail to organize around vulnerability in concrete ways.

What if bell hooks had been hired to consult at the institute where I experienced an erasure of my childhood needs? Whoever found my drawing might have noticed that a child drew it and let it be without comment. They might have assigned readings that illuminate how power dynamics distort how love is enacted in society. And rather than assume my drawing derived from anxiety about my power being lopped off, they might have considered how unequipped small children are to face aggression, whether theirs or the environment’s. And my mom might have realized that what I needed was protection, nurturance, and a place to play—not a windowless library with no room to move.

Today, psychoanalytic institutions, including institutes, conferences, and journals, have yet to organize consistently around ethical forms of relating. Pecking orders continue to rule the roost, microaggressions remain omnipresent, and those with privilege too often choose to turn a blind eye (Holmes et al., 2024). Therefore, I will continue to reach beyond existing structures in order that experiences like mine might come out of the shadows and abide.