A Radically Open Analysis: Writing as Wrapping, Video as Skin

Abstract

ABSTRACT As a white cis queer analyst working with queer and trans patients, I’m continually struck by how often the subject of skin — corporeal, psychic and technological — appears in my clinical work. These appearances can be overdetermined or enigmatic, taking the form of verbal and non-verbal, conscious and unconscious communications between patients and myself. But what are we really talking about, these patients and I, when we talk about skin? My preoccupation with this subject, laden with generalities, as well as nuance, began with an affinity for Didier Anzieu’s skin-ego theory and subsequently, led me through the spectacular terrain of numerous fields of study: psychoanalysis, queer theory, critical race theory, cultural studies, philosophy, somatechnics, media studies and film theory, among others. As theory and clinical work are bound together — informing and reforming one another, it has been my relationship with K which has brought this material alive and generated new forms of thinking.