“My Own” and Other Memorable Moments as Therapist and Artist that are Too Tangled Together to Separate

I suggest that the art-making process and psychoanalytic psychotherapy thrive in an intersubjective context that may be brought into being without verbal exchange or mediation. This article begins with an example of a selfobject experience that occurred early in my career as a psychotherapist with a painter friend that continues to endure as an embodied presence in my work process now as both artist and psychotherapist. Central to this enduring self-sustaining presence in both clinical work and the artist studio is a shared and affirmed experience of creating something of value of “one’s own.” In addition, I propose and demonstrate through a case example that the therapist’s serious commitment to an art practice may carry a special significance to the patient trying to actualize a sense of self through the creative impulse. Through twinship and idealization, the patient may borrow conviction and resilience necessary for artistic and self-creation and may be more able to risk the shame that aspiring and daring to create may activate. Marion Tolpin’s (2002) forward edge concept is invoked to capture how the vitalizing experiences of making something together in the clinical exchange may be generated by creative gestures in the artistic life of the patient and/or therapist. These experiences inform the intersubjective space in which the clinical exchange takes shape and may infuse the therapeutic process with hope, joy, and pride in affirmed, creative self-expression.