The Role of Gender, Intimate Connection, and Personal Experience in Facilitating Mutual Transformation: A Discussion of Annette Richard's “Journeying Back Home Together”

Abstract

This discussion of Annette Richard's treatment of her patient, Beatrice, highlights the crucial role of gender and the sexed body in this female analyst–female patient dyad. Annette helped Beatrice develop a sense of agency as Annette lived through Beatrice's devastating states of panic, loss of self, and fears of being alone. Annette's openness about her personal parallel struggles and self-revelation provided and expanded a sense of empathy during trying times of inevitable misattunements, leading to mutual transformation. My deep resonance with these themes of invisibility and denigration of embodied female experience is illustrated in a personal vignette from my medical student days.