CV
Psychiatrist and a candidate psychoanalyst. She continues her psychoanalytic training under Psike Istanbul and International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). A graduate of Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine, she completed her residency in Bakirkoy Psychiatric Hospital. She works in private practice in Istanbul.
Resettling
When I was asked to give a speech in the symposium focusing on the theme ‘Settling-Taking Root’, I accepted, thinking that it was very relevant to the process that I had been undergoing at the time. A huge disaster had struck our country. It had been about a month and a half since the earthquake that inflicted significant losses and shook us to our core. In the sessions, we worked with the tremors in the inner world caused by this natural disaster. And on the other hand, the questions such as ‘How safe is this room?’ and ‘Do you have a report showing that this building is earthquake-resistant?’ began to pile up. A few months after the earthquake, many of my patients inquired into the earthquake resilience of their own houses. The same process also took place for my office. I made the decision to move my office, which was in an old building about whose earthquake resilience I did not know much about, to an earthquake-resistant building. During the moving process, I attempted to understand and make sense of what I was going through and what my patients told me in the context of their own stories. In doing so, I sometimes resorted to the writings of various theoreticians, Winnicott in particular. I revisited the concepts of holding and transitional objects many times.
In this presentation, I will attempt to share with you the inner journey that I had with my patients and the theoretical literature that accompanied me in this journey of moving and resettling.