A sidelong glance at psychotherapy.

Abstract

The unruly and fleeting lived experience of Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne, as wonderfully described and evoked in his Essays, strikes a surprisingly resonant chord with my own experience of the therapeutic conversation. Rather than explaining or defining his experience, Montaigne cultivates it, like fine wine. He draws us into the richness of his world, abuzz with conversations and cheer. Ever the personable and attentive host, he makes room for each of his lively guests: his readers, his classical ancestors, his contemporaries, and himself. While chatting with one person, he acknowledges others through playful sidelong glances, creating a festive order. I use Montaigne's metaphor of the sidelong glance as a starting point of inquiry into what actually goes on in therapy, as a way of relooking at what is close to us already. Our essayistic frame is unabashedly first-person, limited, dialogical, embodied, and wobbly. We see how this metaphor points to the shared horizon of essaying and therapy: th...