This column attempts to explore the lives and work of IAPSP members from different parts of the world. In this seventh interview, I am pleased to dialogue with Martin Gossmann from Berlin, Germany. Martin was co-chair with Andrea Harms of the 41st IAPSP Annual International Conference which was held in Vienna last October. After having been trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the USA, Martin has been back to his clinical practice in Berlin for some years now. In this interview with him we will hopefully find out more about his experience as a self-psychologically informed therapist working in Berlin.

Martin Gossmann, M.D. trained in neurology and psychiatry in Europe before moving to the US for his training in psychodynamic psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati and in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the International Center for the Study of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology founded and lead by Anna and Paul Ornstein in Cincinnati. He has been attending the Self Psychology’s Annual Conferences since the late 1980s, presenting his own papers, discussing those of colleagues and finally joining the planning committees for both the Jerusalem and the Vienna Conferences. He is currently serving as the International Coordinator of IAPSP.

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Interview with Martin Gossmann

Annette: Hello Martin! Thank you for generously accepting my invitation to be interviewed for this eForum column. I would like to know more about you, your life and work in this great city, Berlin, which I haven’t had the good fortune to visit yet but hope to soon. First of all, can you tell me when and how you became interested in Self Psychology?

Martin: When did I become interested in self psychology? In a way one could say around 1987 when I heard Anna and Paul Ornstein, Ernest Wolf and Joseph Lichtenberg present their work at the 2nd International Self Psychology Conference in Germany, organized by Lotte Koehler, Janos Paal, Peter Kutter and Christel Schoettler.

But then there were certain events and circumstances which had paved the way: Having grown up in a home as the fourth and youngest child of my mother – who was among the first female students to study philosophy as a major at the university of Marburg in the 1950s – and my father – a physician with an interest in the social and psychological factors of health and disease – I had easy access to interesting books in their large bookshelves: Michael Balint, Bruno Bettelheim, Ruth Cohen, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross, Frederick Perls. Most of all, however, I had the luck to be allowed to accompany my father every now and then, at the time studying medicine at the university of Freiburg, to the Balint Group he attended in Giessen, led by Christel Schoettler.

Sometime during High School, being ‘adopted’ by the class one year older than me, I was told that I was ‘Benjamin’. Why? I was told that Benjamin was the youngest brother of Joseph – who was to lead the Jews out of Egypt – and that he was the youngest son of Jacob. Somehow that seemed to fit. In a sense I was used to being the youngest, part of the group but undeniably the youngest; for better and for worse. In the Balint Group, however, Christel Schoettler treated me as a member of the group on equal footing.

During my years at Medical School, my parents also went into – their second – training at the rather prestigious German Gestalt Therapy Institute. As Christel Schoettler asked my parents if they wouldn’t be interested in attending the Self Psychology Meeting and suggested that they bring me along, too, I felt, “if the suggestion comes from her, then I will go.”

At that time, I was thinking of integrating my interest in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis into my aim of becoming a physician, but I did not quite know how to accomplish that. Furthermore, and most importantly, I was quite unhappy with the fact that I came across a certain phenomenon which I did not experience as being helpful: quite often – I really do not know exactly how often but, obviously, too often for my taste- I heard an undertone in debates about psychological problems which went somewhat like this: “the patient would not have to be so unhappy if only he/she weren’t so neurotic;” and “he/she would not have to be so neurotic, if only he/she were to accept my advice/help.” Personally, I knew that I wanted to become a psychoanalyst but with equal certitude I knew that I would not want to become someone who would indirectly, maybe even inadvertently, blame the patient for his/her problem. I knew I needed a different approach and a different access. Listening to Ernest Wolf, Paul Ornstein, then Anna Ornstein and Joseph Lichtenberg at the Conference, I realized: there is a way to accomplish that. And then the decision was clear in my mind: I would do whatever it would take to go to the United States to study Self Psychology.

Annette: What a story! It’s so fascinating to hear how Self Psychology’s teachings appealed to your humanist yearnings, as it did for many of us, so much so that you were determined to move to America to be trained in it. Already, the Gestalt community you were involved with was probably more humanistic than most traditional Psychoanalytic Institutes at the time. I’m curious to know how you found living and studying in North America, and in particular, in the Self Psychology community here.

Martin: FrankIy, I cannot say how I experienced living, studying, and being a member of the Self Psychology Community in the United States, or anywhere else, for that matter. In fact, I did not think of the people I met, studied or worked with, got to know better every year, became friends with … as members of a ‘community’. But then that may say more about me than about the Self Psychology Community, if that really exists. These things cannot be said with certainty, of course, but I assume that my having grown up in Germany had an impact on what I experience(d) as my dread of ideologies and of ideological movements.

Annette: Having taken part in a particular ideological therapeutic movement in my very early career, I can understand that dread Martin, and, as a result, your probable receptivity to more open world views. But do you identify yourself as a self-psychologically informed psychotherapist or analyst or do you find it too limiting?

Martin: Well, there is no single answer to this question. Many years ago, Paul Ornstein once asked in class, “what was Heinz Kohut’s most important contribution to psychoanalysis” and I responded: “his way of interacting with his patients.” For Paul that was not the answer he expected because he was thinking of the ‘selfobject’ as being Heinz Kohut’s most important contribution to the theory of psychoanalytic theory.

Which is certainly true. At the same time, it was my impression that Kohut’s honest investment in the effort to understand the experiential world of his patients from within was indeed a very valuable contribution and it was my impression that his readiness to base his response on his understanding in a way which gave credit and legitimized the patient’s perspective had an important impact on how he communicated, or dealt, or interacted with his patient. One might argue that it is a contribution to the practice of psychotherapy and less to the theory but in fact I am rather convinced that it is both.

Heinz Kohut’s definition of empathy and vicarious introspection as the only two access modes which allow us to understand the human psyche from within – and that is the only valid position within the therapeutic setting in his view – is both a theoretical and a practice-oriented definition. It is a definition put into practice when we regard the empathic listening perspective as the most important one we try to reach and maintain; and we do imply that empathy is not only used as a diagnostic tool but that the effort to reach and maintain an empathic mode of listening informs our empathy based responsiveness as we not only respond but at the same time pay attention to the patient’s response to our response. One might say: empathic attunement is the basis for our response communicating what we regard to be in the best interest of the patient at any given moment – and we can only know that by paying close attention to the patient’s psychological state of mind within a developmental perspective.

One might argue, however – at least on the level of what Paul Ornstein called “comparative psychoanalysis” – that to communicate on the basis of the empathic understanding what seems to be most helpful for a patient is not very specific; and that it is not primarily self psychological. A classical analyst who regards a drive interpretation as most important for his patient to hear at a given moment or a Relational analyst who regards the feed-back to his patient that he/she maintains an emotional distance which interferes with otherwise possible therapeutic gains certainly do the same within their theory. The appreciation of the way, however, in which my interactions with my patient affect his psychological equilibrium, re-establish or maintain it, or even cause his disequilibrium, is what seems to make the difference. This is the experiential level of Kohut’s theoretical construct of a selfobject experience.

Intersubjectivity theory describes, in my mind, similar events but it does so from within a different perspective. It has been said that Kohut’s self psychology constitutes either a one-person or a two-person psychology and I have been saying that it is actually both (or neither): Kohutian self psychology explores and appreciates in what ways the interaction of two people affects one of them from within his/her experience and his/her idiosyncratic logic.

Especially in difficult moments – and Anna Ornstein once wrote that it’s really the only moment you need a theory: when you have to decide how you understand (and overcome) the disruption – I have been finding it very helpful to ask myself: what is it my patient is telling me about his/her response to what I just expressed? It is as if on the stage of a theater the light which had been shining on both of us – as the expression of a two-person-psychology – were to shift and illuminate the patient’s world only. That is where I have to look for ‘the truth’ of what just happened or still happens.

Both the theory and my clinical experience support this notion. I do not experience that as a limitation. To the contrary: being aware of this important dimension of any therapeutic exchange – the way in which it affects the patient in his/her strivings for psychic equilibrium and development – gives me a great deal of freedom in the immediate interactions with my patients. I may lose sight of what is really going on, I may be on the mark, or totally off… I know where I can and often shall return as home base. For me the self-psychological definition of my being – and working as – a psychotherapist is no more and no less than that.

Be it as I talk to a patient face to face with both of us sitting in opposite chairs, be it sitting side by side on a chair with a patient next to me on the couch, be it whilst we are both sitting on the floor with crayons and big white pieces of paper drawing a picture of his family of origin; be it whilst we try to explore a difficult moment in my patient’s life by enacting it in my office in a role play; be it as we talk, as we fall quiet, as we shake hands when we meet and when we part.

Annette: Martin, thank you for having given us a good glimpse of your own self psychology, your understanding and uses of it as a psychotherapist. Your patients’ experiences and your empathic understanding of, and responses to, them seems to be your guiding light, your “home base” as you say. I would like to know now about your life and work in Berlin. Are you affiliated to a professional group there? How is your particular self-psychological approach to therapy recognized there by other clinicians or psychoanalysts? Do you teach at an Institute or anywhere else?

Martin: Well, how can I best explain it in such a way that someone living outside Germany gets the picture? Obviously, there are different dimensions, or areas, or fields; there is the field of research, of teaching, and of training; there is in Germany a second tier which is the exchange with the insurance companies which do cover the costs for psychotherapy – and which demand written reports on the patient’s problem, the biography, my psychodynamic hypothesis, my treatment approach and treatment plan. This is when I do have to do the most to ‘convince’ the medical or psychological experts who advise the insurance companies that the treatment is needed for a narcissistic or a self-related problem, and that my approach is valid. When I first came back to Germany in 1993, it used to be that these experts were almost exclusively Freudian by training. Thus, I had to describe a Freudian approach and then argue why I found a different approach, namely a self psychological one, more convincing and more in line with what the patient had actually told me about his or her experience of him/herself and his/her problem.

Self psychology was, then, not a theory necessarily taught at the institutes. And so far there is only one German speaking institute which mentions self psychology in its name: the Vienna Circle for Psychoanalysis and Self Psychology. But in Germany, too, self psychology is nowadays at least mentioned in the curricula of a number of institutes and it was almost natural that at the two institutes where I teach, I am the one who teaches self psychology.

But it took a while: there were many people who were supportive and to whom I am very grateful. In Germany we were very lucky to have Lotte Koehler from Munich, Janus Paal from Dreieich, Peter Kutter, then living in Frankfurt, and Christel Schoettler from nearby Giessen to not only introduce us to self psychology but to organize and offer financial support for the bi-yearly International Self Psychology Symposium which was held for 20 years, during the second half being organized by Wolfgang Milch and Hans-Peter Hartmann.

And we felt immensely grateful that the Jewish colleagues were willing to come to Germany! They opened a new world for us.

Much has lead to this process throughout the last almost 25 years during which Self Psychology has been receiving increasing recognition. Personally, I feel I am very lucky to have received a lot of support and encouragement. Maybe it began in 1994, when Lotte Koehler was asked to present and explain Margaret Mahler’s developmental theory at a scientific meeting in the outskirts of Berlin co-organized by both an inpatient treatment facility for psychosomatic medicine and the Brandenburg Academy for Depth Psychology and Analytic Psychotherapy. As an influential and cherished supporter of contemporary psychoanalysis and founder of the René Spitz Society, Lotte had privileged access to a tape in which Margaret Mahler’s co-workers Anni Bergmann and Fred Pine explain the theory. Unfortunately, Lotte could not come to Berlin at the time and suggested that I step in. The tape was in English and in order to make it easier to understand for my German colleagues, I transcribed and then translated the interview. Then I called the organizer of the meeting to confirm that I would be happy to present Mahler’s theory and I truthfully added: ‘but I actually do not believe in it’. And the unexpected response was: “Why don’t you come and present the theory, and then tell us why you do not believe in it.”

At the end of the meeting, which went rather well, I asked the colleague from the training institute if they needed (or could make use of) a lecturer; I liked the fact that being of a different persuasion not only did not exclude me from presenting but was in fact regarded as an interesting contribution. This did ultimately lead to my becoming first a lecturer, then a teaching and furthermore supervising analyst, and, at some point, head of the psychoanalytic training program of the institute. There was a moment when I actually had to rethink my dedication to the institute. When I was asked to teach the Freudian theory of psychosexual development and I said to the then head of the institute that I did not support this traditional view, his response was that it was then questionable why I was teaching at this institute altogether. Rather than quitting, I decided to explain Freud’s theory to the candidates and then discuss other views with them, as well.

Throughout these years, I invited (and was involved in various invitations of) my teachers, Anna and Paul Ornstein, Joseph Lichtenberg, Jill Gardner, and Frank Lachmann for workshops most of which I organized in my own private practice. This was in itself a very valuable experience because I was not only privileged to attend these meetings but was asked to translate from German to English, and back, on these occasions. It is very instructive to translate because it means that I had to make sure that I really understood what the person wanted to say. Not necessarily repeat in the other language what he or she said verbatim because there might not be the exact same words available in the (other) language. I had to know what they meant or wanted to say in order to put it into the appropriate words. Rather than calling this a trans-lation I have been thinking of it as a ‘trans-fer‘ into the other language. This certainly helped me in many years of translating both at scientific meetings and for German publications presented in English journals and vice versa; one of the formats being the English abstracts of Swiss, Austrian, and German papers for the IJPSP and the German abstracts of English papers for a couple of years. In this way I was directly or indirectly connected to the academic realm of our profession. And in this way, I had the luck and the opportunity to be in close contact with many wonderful people, with the theoretical advancement of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and with the ongoing clinical exchange.

In addition, I was very lucky, I felt – as I often was in my life – when I had invited Frank Lachmann to give a workshop in my private practice for a number of colleagues. Somehow, Professor Koerner, then head of the newly founded International Psychoanalytic University in Berlin, who knew Frank and liked his work, heard about it and contacted me to ask if I could be helpful in organizing a second workshop to be held at the IPU. Honestly, I felt it would make most sense to move ‘my’ workshop to the IPU and invite everyone – faculty, students, colleagues in private practice … and that is what we did. My task was then to translate, in case it might be needed, but it was hardly needed, because Frank’s vital way of presenting and his German were all he needed. And out of that developed something else, because I was then asked if I could imagine teaching at the IPU. Since then I have been teaching in the bachelor and master programs of clinical psychology, the overall topic being “paradigms of intervention” and currently in the master program ‘”mental disorders.” And I feel enriched by the teaching because the questions of those who are not necessarily familiar with all the implications of self psychology demand of me that I make the implicit ideas explicit and put the theoretical considerations into words that are easily accessible. In addition, I use taped therapy sessions to discuss the process with my students. Not in order to present “good psychotherapy'” but to evaluate the process and, most of all. to address the ways in which we actually come to our clinical assessment.

The colleagues of the Vienna Circle, Andrea Harms, Erwin Bartosch, and Franz Herberth were very helpful in the rather complicated process of having my American training accepted in Germany; and when Andrea asked me if I would consider supporting them in preparing the 2018 Annual Conference my answer was, “You have me at your side.” This is my effort to give to others what I received myself in multiple moments of support throughout my professional process.

Annette: A fascinating professional journey indeed Martin! That was very interesting! And you certainly gave back to others what you received last October in Vienna. The Vienna Conference was a vibrant homage to our analytic forebearers, Freud and Kohut, along with others, to their courage and resilience in facing crisis. You and Andrea put together an inspiring array of presentations and events; the graciousness and warmth of your welcome will long be remembered by all of us who were there. And thank you so much for being willing to submit yourself to my questions and to have introduced us to your world of clinical practice and teaching in Berlin. I hope to see you in Vancouver next October where it will be my turn to give back as I co-chair the conference with Max Sucharov.