Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2016, 61, 5, 607–624

Nina Coltart and the border of Bethlehem

Philip Kime, Zürich, Switzerland

Abstract: Nina Coltart's freedom in addressing delicate areas such as spirituality and
Buddhism within a psychoanalytic framework has opened borders between different
psychoanalytic communities. This paper sets out to identify a deep-rooted
philosophical tension that runs through several aspects of Coltart's work starting from
her ‘Slouching towards Bethlehem … or, thinking the unthinkable in psychoanalysis’.
In exploring this central topic in depth psychology, of the distinction between
thinkable and unthinkable contents, the author argues that it is not a fundamental
distinction in Coltart's work but is rather a particular example of a more fundamental
structural dichotomy which pervades her approach and which manifests in several
different guises. It is the breadth and sincerity of Coltart's writings which make this a
useful exercise, not only for understanding the structure of her work but also in
illuminating some structural tensions which permeate depth-psychological pursuits in
general.

Keywords: Coltart, Bethlehem, Beast, Buddhism, reification, border, ontology

Introduction
I have found that reading the work of Nina Coltart is a particularly refreshing
experience. Her writings do not appear essentially motivated by a desire to
promote a theoretical viewpoint and this is borne out by what Coltart herself
says at the beginning of both books of collected papers – that she only wrote
by request. The resulting works radiate her depth of experience but without
the narrative and structural embellishments that a self-motivated desire to
express inevitably contribute.
The most well-known of Coltart's papers, ‘Slouching towards Bethlehem …
or thinking the unthinkable in psychoanalysis’ (Coltart 1986), raises with
poetic metaphor a central topic in depth psychology, that of the distinction
between thinkable and unthinkable contents. This structurally pervasive idea
is one with which most practitioners are familiar, in some form or another. I
feel, however, that it is not a fundamental distinction in Coltart's work but is
rather a particular example of a more fundamental structural dichotomy
which pervades her approach and which manifests in several different guises.
I have never been convinced by the anti-intellectual (or what amounts to the

0021-8774/2016/6105/607 © 2016, The Society of Analytical Psychology

Published by Wiley Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-5922.12256
608 Philip Kime

same thing, the pro-emotional) tone of much mainstream analytical psychology

as it constitutes an underlying structural bivalence, irrespective of the two
particular things which are meant to be opposed to one another. Being
motivated by such a view, it is my intention in this paper to examine the
dichotomy in Coltart's well-considered and honest work as a particularly
interesting structural example and to try to make sense of how my own
experience informs the examination.
The particular and striking individualism of Coltart's attitude is apparent
in her unabashed labelling of Bion as a ‘mystic’ (Coltart 1986, p. 4)
without a hint of psychoanalytical commentary aimed at neutralizing such
a pregnant term. Indeed it is often what Coltart refrains from saying
which indicates her unique position in the English psychoanalytic
movement. Controversially, Coltart maintained consistently that there is a
need within psychoanalysis for philosophical structure going beyond
psychoanalysis:

I am not convinced that psychoanalysis itself offers such a philosophical structure.

There are many analysts and therapists who, without having particularly thought it
out, vaguely assume that it does, or simply that its enormous demands are quite
enough to be going on with.

(Coltart 1990b, p. 120)

It is ‘philosophical structure’ which I aim to examine in the guise of what I

think it is fair to call the deep unaddressed dichotomy in Coltart's view of
psychology which, as is common with deep dichotomy, does not really
manifest in her clear practical competence nor in her remarkably insightful
case studies. Such structural splits never really come to the surface in the
manifest contents of ideas or even of practice since their influence is formal
and therefore not adequately expressed by a theme or topic of discussion. I
might initially point to the dark undertone that pervades the dénouement of
several of the main case studies which Coltart chose to publish.1 In such
cases, we have a rather pragmatic if not fatalistic tone which sits strangely
with the more humane feeling of other cases where Coltart clearly feels the
need to defend against mainstream psychoanalytical accusations of
sentimentality.2
In order to establish a case for the underlying structural tension, I will
examine four manifestations which I feel proceed from the same structural
core. In my view, it is such a structural core which is really the ‘unthinkable’,
something I will return to later. The four tensions that I believe are indicative
of the particular tension in Coltart's work are:

1
For example, Coltart 1993a, p. 90, and the famous passages on allowing laughter (Coltart 1986,
pp. 11–13; Coltart 1987, pp. 103–04)
2
For example, Coltart 1985b, Coltart 1996a, Coltart 1996b
The border of Bethlehem 609

• Thinkable/Unthinkable
• Psychoanalysis/Psychotherapy
• Psychological/Spiritual
• Emotional sensitivity/Emotional involvement

The thinkable and the unthinkable

Coltart's best known paper is fundamentally about handling the distinction
between the thinkable and the unthinkable – the ‘rough beast’ described as
slouching towards a birth, the psychoanalyst being the midwife who does not
understand the mystery of birth but perhaps knows how to help it along.
What a comfort this is in early practice; I clearly remember being rather in the
dark about how to describe or reconstruct what I was doing with patients
and realizing that this often made no difference to the results which were
often as startling as my theoretical idealizations were merely idealistic.
‘Slouching towards Bethlehem’ is a modern and highly relevant re-statement
of a psychoanalytic essential – the fundamentally uncivilized, inexpressible, pre-
verbal component which defies all swift modern attempts to assimilate into
thought, words and public expression. It is an assertion of the rights of the
unthinkable, the rights of the rough beast to make its way in its own time.
Since the ‘rough beast’ image for the unthinkable was occasioned by the case
described (Coltart 1990a), it is well to look into what is developed there. The
critical and memorable passage in this study is the account of the ‘um’ that
the patient would utter in place of a developed, thinkable thought but which
indicated an unconscious desire for thinkable life, evidenced by the fact that
interrupting its slouching, monosyllabic progress would result in a feeling of
attack or invasion on the part of the patient. Coltart's interpretation of this
‘um’ was: ‘Hold on, shut up, don't interrupt me, let me finish, stand back, get
off me’ (ibid., p. 152). The difficulty I have with this interpretation, given that
it is supposed to be indicative of the rough beast – the ‘deepest level of being’
(ibid., p. 151), is that it is very much thinkable, very much perfectly expressed
thought. It does not help to say that it is unthinkable to the patient but not to
the analyst since that is not an essential difference, merely a personal one. The
unthinkable is not, in such a situation, essentially unthinkable since it has
understandable wishes which, if granted, may not be congruent with more
developed patterns of interaction but there is nothing essentially unthinkable
about this. The birth it approaches in Bethlehem is not a birth of the
thinkable from the unthinkable because the unthinkable cannot be
characterized as a ‘rough beast’, for that content is clearly thinkable and
interpretable as representing primitive feelings. Poetic licence here has got the
better of us because our interpretations and choice of poetic metaphor lull us
into thinking that there is something which is not yet born, that perhaps
desires birth or at least does not want to be prevented from attaining it.
610 Philip Kime

I find this an example of Coltart wrestling to preserve in psychoanalytic

theory some of the extra-psychoanalytic elements in her thought, such as the
very particular idea she has of ‘faith’, which I will address below. In working
with silent patients, I have found that the silence is not so much the sound of
the ‘rough beast’ making its way; however, the way one interacts with the
silence can certainly create such a beast by the assumptions one has about
what the silence contains.
Interpreting a silence, for example as ‘hostile’, has a very basic ontological
assumption that there is an agent, however abstract, of the hostilities.
Supporting this with interpretations which lead to conscious insight is in fact
the genesis of both the thinkable and the genesis of the unthinkable,
theoretical rough beast which underwent the birth. The unthinkable rough
beast is, I would say, a logical retrojection of something thinkable, probably
thought by the analyst, and is in fact a very abstract thinkable content. Not a
rough beast at all but a highly sophisticated construct and artefact of the
structure of psychoanalytic procedure.
We can tease out this uneasy dichotomy again by approaching it through the
tension between theory and practice, between training and facing patients.
Coltart, like many in the field, feels the need to emphasize the rigours and
depth of ‘deep exacting’ psychoanalytic training (Coltart 1986, p. 2).
I never fail to find these asseverations of rigour slightly odd, an interesting
and incongruous element on the way to inevitably staking out the opposite
pole of ‘faith’, the ‘mystery’ or the coming of the time of the slouching beast.
Perhaps the unthinkable requires a solid thinkable ground on which to stand
and of course this is a common enough idea in psychoanalysis – that solid
technique is the foundation of being able to handle the non-solid, the
unthinkable. Nevertheless this is indicative, I think, of what is basically a
deficit in appreciation of the dialectics of the situation. When dealing with
categories of less dialectical difficulty, this is a perfectly understandable and
valid idea. A fireman or doctor deals with difficult situations on the basis of
solid experience, and trains in settings which are not so difficult. Experiences
which are not difficult build up tolerance and expertise for experiences which
are difficult. However, ‘difficulty’ is dialectically trivial when compared with
‘thinkability’. Difficulty is a merely continuous range whereas the thinkable/
unthinkable difference is not. One is not aided in dealing with the
unthinkable by becoming expert in the thinkable any more than a fireman
who is expert at dealing with fires can through his occupational experience
come to be expert at dealing with non-fires. An unthinkable which can only
be approached on the basis of the thinkable is not essentially unthinkable.
The slouching beast is not ‘holed up in the body’ (ibid., p. 13). It is not
waiting, hidden for its time to come, existing in a primitive state, requiring
the temporal density and length of a real analysis to allow it to be born,
undamaged by the indelicate assumptions of theoretical brutality. The very
idea of the right ‘time’ of the slouching beast (that is, its proper birth)
The border of Bethlehem 611

essentially contributes to the idea of it being a beast in the first place. Anything
which needs to be born at the right time, carefully, without being artificially
dragged into existence is automatically some sort of idealized animal, a beast
not yet ‘ready’. The idea of the non-verbal or unthinkable slouching beast
seems to give rise to the idea of the careful suspension of theory and the
technical ability to bear the waiting but just as much, the implied ‘right time’
of the beast establishes it as a nascent animal in the first place. There is no
separate, on the one hand, ‘slouching beast’ and on the other, the right time
for the beast to arrive in Bethlehem. They are the same concept, utterly
indivisible.

Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy

Coltart is notable in emphasizing and exploring the distinction between
psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.3 The essential difference which Coltart
sets at the centre of the distinction is that of time. The absolute measured
amount of time spent in psychological work with an individual affords the
luxury of being able to defer addressing particular psychoanalytic themes.
This allows one to, according to Coltart, pay more attention to the progress
of the ‘rough beast’ and the essential mystery of the beast's approaching time.
This might appear to be a rather formal differentiation but it in fact coheres
in an important respect with the most controversial aspect of Coltart's
thought – her commitment to Buddhism. Once could say that Buddhism is in
a sense a suspension of focus on content (the contents of life). This
suspension, which has an indefinite limit beyond the temporal lifespan of the
individual, is the Buddhist goal, saying ‘not yet’ to life's contents until there
are no more contents. This demonstrates a very important aspect of the
‘rough beast’; it is the disguised spiritual aspect within Coltart's
psychoanalytic theory, it is that for which one suspends the world for the sake
of development. Buddhism is here the overarching, extra-psychoanalytic
framework which establishes as foundational the ‘not yet’ which Coltart sees
as the root of psychoanalysis proper.
The ‘not yet’ is critical as this keeps one in life in a way that simply saying ‘no’
to life does not. The ‘not yet’ is not life denying, but rather a perpetual putting
off until the ‘beast has its time’. Psychoanalysis proper, as opposed to
psychotherapy, is structurally the embodiment of this ‘putting off’. In my own
work, I have found this type of structure to be a natural progression along
with increasing experience; the suspension of the explicit consolidation of
successes is something which increasing confidence allows. One need not
summarize progress or regression or interpret every transitory phenomenon
because, given enough time and time density of analysis, just about everything
3
Coltart (1986), Coltart (1993a, chapter 2)
612 Philip Kime

is transitory. To my mind it is a rather definitive aspect of depth psychology that

putative practical ‘gains’ may be indefinitely postponed in the service of the
momentum of the process, this latter being in fact a very important, if not the
most important, derived goal. I say ‘derived’ as I feel it never becomes an
actual goal, this attention to the right momentum. Indeed, if it ever does, it
ceases to be useful since it becomes a simple goal and it is the structure of
being a simple goal that contradicts the particular and peculiar structure of
psychological work.
Personally, this manifested for me under the rubric of silence. Not in terms of
the silent patient but rather the silent analyst. Learning when to be silent is the
most important skill an analyst can develop. Silence is indeed an essential part
of what separates psychoanalysis from psychotherapy because it takes a risk,
the risk of letting material pass by in the service of furthering an analytic
momentum. This momentum contributes very little to psychotherapy, which
by association with the very word ‘therapy’ always has a direct goal, that of
healing of some sort. Remaining silent is often, I have found, the border
where one chooses analytic or therapeutic work, breaking of silence
frequently indicating the latter. However, individual decisions to remain silent
do not constitute a manifestation of a latent psychoanalytic attitude, that is,
the birth in time, during an analysis for example, of psychoanalysis proper.
Such decisions are the existence of psychoanalysis which does not exist as
some sort of latent practice or entity between such moments. Here is a
similarity with the lack of ontological status of the patient's ‘rough beast’
more than a similarity in fact, since that which colloquially slouches towards
birth is not located in the patient but rather in the wholly impersonal sphere
of psychological understanding.
I believe that psychological understanding is very rare and constitutes a tiny
proportion of our lives, even of our analytic practices. A substrate that could
support an unmanifest psychology is inherently unpsychological, because
psychology proper is inherently manifest. An ‘unconscious psychological
structure’ is a contradiction in terms because psychology is an attitude, a
relation of parts which is impossible in the absence of the awareness of the
actors in relation. This is analogous to saying that a ‘dream’ is a conscious
phenomenon, which it clearly is: the concept of, approach to and
interpretation of dreams is an entirely conscious arena and the ‘objects’ of
dream interpretation are entirely consciously re-constructed memories or
accounts. It is in fact quite wrong to speak of the ‘raw dream’ as some sort
of origin, some sort of pre-interpretation object, because the very notion of
dream is the reporting, interpreting, conceptual existing and telling of it.
There is no rough dream beast slouching towards consciousness,
inadequately interpreted, not fully exhausted but nevertheless ‘there’. It is
the variegated and necessary dissatisfactions of conscious adumbrations in
themselves which create the idea that there must be something to which
consciousness is inadequate. It is the experience of some sort of slouching
The border of Bethlehem 613

consciousness which makes us think that there must be a subject performing

the slouching.
I still find the temptation of this idea constantly alarming in practice and
something which I find myself wrestling with a great deal: the feeling that
there is some sort of thing here to be understood if only I could hear it, see it,
interpret it or whatever. This feeling is not evidence for the rough beast in the
patient but is the rough beast of psychological understanding itself which is
not a beast, not a thing hiding out of sight but is the process of being fooled
into an ontological attitude and the, hopefully, simultaneous process of
resisting being so fooled. Psychoanalysis proper, I would say, is characterized
by a resistance to the ontologizing of characteristics of the process of
psychoanalysis.4 Psychotherapy does not care so much about its own attitude
since it has goals for the patient rather than the goal of psychoanalytic
attitude. It is interesting that in Coltart's last published paper (Coltart 1996d),
she rescinds the time-density aspect of psychoanalysis and emphasizes rather
the importance of the ‘psychological-mindedness’ (ibid., p. 160) of the patient
in determining whether psychoanalysis or psychotherapy is indicated. This is
valuable because it indicates a shift towards characterizing the difference on
the basis of the type of process, the structure of the thing. However, the
psychological-mindedness of the patient is not, I feel, as important as that of
the analyst who can potentially do psychoanalysis with the most
unfavourable patients if there is no assumption of there being a latent rough
beast which perhaps cannot be reached due to a lack of psychological-
mindedness on the part of the patient.
My own experience of developing a personal ‘style’ in practice has been
overshadowed by the very particular temptation of the rough beast: the
temptation to think that it exists. It has been and continues to be a difficult
task to resist this given the commonplace reification that is rife in depth
psychology. The key for me was the realization that the roughness of the
beast is an essential roughness which saturates the very core of the idea of
such a ‘thing’. In psychology, we cannot entertain a simple model of entities
apart from their contingent characteristics as this is logically far too simple.5
We cannot think of a beast which just happens at the present time to be
rough and slouching, since the very admittance of the concept of the beast is
through its mode of being, its roughness, its slouching. The beast is essentially
rough and this means that its existence is rough, its being is rough and this
means that it does not exist in any normal sense – its roughness is
fundamental, logical, structural and to talk of it simply existing is to change
the meaning of ‘exist’ quietly in the background, giving the illusion of a

4
Bion was particularly sensitive to this, particularly in his classic Learning From Experience
(Bion 1962).
5
Giegerich has developed this critical idea well: see for example his extremely important analysis of
Jung's ‘border’ dream (Giegerich 2013b, pp. 144–45).
614 Philip Kime

simple ontological fact which is anything but simple, there being a subtle
dialectic underneath. Psychoanalysis proper cannot ignore this dialectic of the
existence of its theoretical objects as I think this is what defines it apart from
psychotherapy. Coltart's idea that psychoanalysis has the luxury of not
attending to everything immediately is, I think, an intuitive grasp of the
subtlety of what must be grasped; the idea of the rough beast arises in the
geometry of the interaction and suffuses everything.

Psychology and spirituality

Coltart is well known for her unabashed comments about spirituality, which
may be thought to sit uncomfortably within a largely traditional
psychoanalytic framework. For example: ‘Psychological adjustment is not
liberation. The path of spiritual growth cuts off at an angle to that of
psychological growth, and to confuse the two may be to get stuck unawares,
or with a sense of disillusionment’ (Coltart 1985a, p. 169).
The way in which Coltart approaches spirituality is through her particular
use of the word ‘faith’, which has a number of aspects. A most significant
occurrence of the term is preceded by a characterization of the slouching
beast as the ‘true pattern’ (Coltart 1986, p. 7) which ‘faith’ (on the part of the
analyst) allows to emerge. Again we see the ontological assumptions in this
model – the beast ‘emerges’, implying its existence before and during the
emergence.
For Coltart, such faith is the positive, concrete side of the suspension of
theoretical brutality, an aspect of the luxury of psychoanalysis which allows
the analyst to wait and see, giving space without knowing exactly what the
space is for. There is, one feels, a great sacrifice involved for Coltart in this
practice of theoretical faith. The sacrifice is always indicated by strong
language in characterizing the positive attributes of what is sacrificed – the
theory, the training, the interpretations. It is common for Coltart to refer to –
at such junctures as when it is being put forward as a sacrifice to faith – the
suspension of ‘deep exacting’ training and theory. There is a pattern in her
writing where the sacrifice of theory to faith is characterized as hard and
significant which decidedly marks what is sacrificed for greatness and
therefore establishes the training, the theory as great. If at the core is a
mystery, the observance of this mystery requires a sacrifice of something
significant, for otherwise the mystery is worth little. The sacrificial lamb here
is psychoanalytical theory and training which are thereby ennobled as a great
offering. This, I feel, is the basis of the strange sensation I have when reading
Coltart's exhortations about the exacting, deep, rigorous nature of
psychoanalytical training before inevitably sacrificing this fattened calf in the
next sentence on the altar of faith. It is not that I particularly disagree with
either the importance of theory and training nor the essential component of
something broadly conceived as ‘faith’ being essential. It is that in Coltart I
The border of Bethlehem 615

find the two isolated and disconnected from each other, poles apart but
sometimes clashing together within the same paragraph.
After concluding a section with mention of the ‘true pattern’, Coltart says:
I am sure I am not saying anything heretical or unfamiliar to analysts at least, if I
confess that I sometimes wish ardently, as I settle down for the opening sessions of
what promises to be a long analysis, that the first year were already over. This is part
of the paradoxical nature of our work. I would not for the world pass up that first
year with all its subtle demands on the technique of getting the patient rooted in the
analysis, feeling for the available transferences, learning history...

(Coltart 1986, p. 7)

On the one hand, yes, let us quickly skip to the ‘true pattern’ (which requires
faith) as soon as possible but no, let us slowly celebrate the solidity of theory
and training. Again, Coltart says that as she became older, she found that ‘the
act of faith is becoming easier. Of course, to say this is not to detract from the
high value attaching to the power of attention and total concern with the
patient’ (ibid., p. 12). On the one hand, yes, burgeoning faith, on the other
hand, no, nothing is taken away from theory and training. This for me is too
much – how can faith not detract from that which must be suspended in order
for it to manifest? There is a clear value judgement in that one suspends the
lower to allow the higher. Again, this is like the existence of the rough beast
which does not really ‘exist’ because it is essentially, existentially rough. The
suspension of X in order to encourage Y establishes Y as higher. Suspending
training and theory for faith, no matter how much one lauds them in order to
protect them, is the establishment of faith as higher and this is to detract
fundamentally from Coltart's overcompensated ‘total’ concern for the patient.
It seems to me to be an impossible and telling overstatement to encourage total
concern for the patient, a consequence of the intuitive recognition that faith
does detract from the importance of technique in some critical way.
Speaking of the element of psychoanalytical faith involved in laughing during
analytical sessions, Coltart says: ‘With advancing age laughter seems to occur
more often than it did. Of course, it is important to try to continue to
monitor and analyse what is happening’ (Coltart 1986, p. 12).
On the one hand, yes, faith and laughter, on the other hand of course it does
not replace technique. While this seems so reasonable, it sells ‘faith’ at too cheap
a price as ‘faith’ demands as its very essence that it challenge everything
otherwise it is not faith.
I would say that this conflict of training and theory with ‘faith’ is an essential
conflict for all analysts as they find their feet in practice and I find Coltart
remarkable for both her bravery and insight when tackling this problem. It is
not often spoken openly about since we are all so concerned to appear serious
and professional. Our fear is allayed very often by referring to our ‘rigorous’
training or to theoretical ideas. In the end, neither the expression of the
complete difference of faith and theory nor their attempted reconciliation are
616 Philip Kime

convincing. Nor is the standard solution offered when one cannot adequately
define or maintain an absolute difference – that of labelling it a ‘paradox’ in
the hope that this somehow satisfies, which it unfortunately so often does in
analytical psychology.
The contradiction between faith and theory I do not find to be a paradox at
all because there are not two things to contradict. It is only when one
concentrates on the contents of faith and the contents of training/theory that
one inadvertently constructs an artificial problem. Theory and training
require that one keep in mind interpretations, constructions and that one
evaluate contributions from the patient in the light of one's current
understanding. The faith Coltart speaks of requires that one does not do any
of this, allowing things (the beast) to ‘emerge’ as they will.
However, the reason I gave the quotes from Coltart above is that they
demonstrate a very important aspect of the dichotomy between faith and
theory which is revealed in her particularly emphatic statements of the value
of theory, each time faith is mentioned. It is indeed this value which is so
important and the most telling slip is the ‘total concern’ which Coltart
advocates for the patient; such an absolute is obviously impossible to achieve
and is psychoanalytically a strange thing to insist upon. Such a slip shows us
that faith and theory share a common fund of value which is differently
expressed in terms of content, in terms of what each demands. This difference
of content should not fool us however since it is inessential. The effective
worship of ‘deep exacting’ training and of absolute ‘total concern’ for the
patient shows us the hiding place of faith in its apparent opposite. Conversely,
the fact that faith ‘becomes easier’ with age shows that it develops over time,
time being the hiding place of faith within the progression of training and
theory. There are not two things, faith and theory, but rather a value which
manifests itself in different form in both. For this reason I find this division in
Coltart hard to come to terms with.
One of Coltart's great contributions to the field of psychoanalysis is her work
discussing the role of silence (Coltart 1991) where she maintains that the great
lesson is that one is forced to wait for the true pattern and for this waiting, faith
is essential. With extended silence, there is no extraneous, interpretable data
with which one may engage in order to break the tension of waiting for the
beast to arrive. Faith is not essentially about silence and space however. The
value in the act of faith is argued for in Coltart's most famous case in which
she documents her ‘outburst’ at a frustrating patient (Coltart 1990a). This
was an outburst of faith, seemingly flying in the face of a rigorous adherence
to transference theory (Coltart 1996e, Chap. 4). What indeed defines this
outburst as faith is, for Coltart, that it suspended the theoretical framework
which otherwise might have prohibited such intervention. I would say rather
that the fire of faith which informed the famous outburst was identical with
the rigour of the theoretical dictates which were bypassed. The ‘fire’ of faith
which transcends theory and the ‘rigour’ of the theory which would legislate
The border of Bethlehem 617

against such fire are the same value, expressed differently. The outburst was
fruitful and so the identity of the commonplace rigidity of theoretical
pronouncements and the theoretically annihilating fire of the ‘act of faith’ did
not become apparent.
Coltart says that such acts of faith can ‘feel’ dangerous by which she means I
suppose, given the context, that they are dangerous. So, of course, can a rigid
adherence to theory be dangerous – it does not take much experience to
recognize the truth of this. The danger of faith's fire or theory's calm covering
waters are the same, merely the type of danger is different and this is not
enough to essentially differentiate them. The special role of faith is related to
the reification of the ‘place’ which the slouching beast reaches to attain a
conscious status hitherto unknown: ‘The beast has crossed that mysterious
barrier whose location eludes us’ (Coltart 1986, p. 13). However, a truly
mysterious barrier is a barrier that has no location; it challenges the very idea
of ‘barrier’. It must do this because a barrier is not mysterious if it is merely
hard to find. This idea of a normal barrier, the location of which eludes us,
allows us to divide things artificially – theory on one side and faith on the
other. Interpretable data on one side and a place where ‘things happen’
(Coltart 1990b, p. 117) on the other. The barrier between theory and faith is
not a barrier that divides different things but rather a strange barrier which
divides different expressions of value and in doing so, establishes identity and
therefore is also not a barrier. A beast that crosses such a barrier is not a
beast in any normal sense. It is the expression of ‘barrier’ to the
unpsychological understanding or, alternatively, is the personification of the
artificial difference between modes of absolute value (rigorous theory or
transcendent faith). Coltart's tension seems to lie in the fact that faith and
theory are seen as mutually incompatible but impossible to essentially decide
between. The beast suffers in this indecision and is forced to play the role of a
real, existent entity to be either be tamed by faith, a common enough
religious theme, or caged by concepts, a common enough scientific theme.
This ontological commitment is absolute, cast into the very structure of the
imagery and Giegerich is correct in saying that it makes no truly
psychological difference if we add that ‘beast’ is just a metaphor (Giegerich
2013a, footnote p. 265).
Should I, as a practitioner, have an attitude of faith, perhaps bursting out in
authentic emotion or remain in an attitude of theoretical interest and
reconstruction? It makes little difference to the beast, which is forced to exist
in order for there to be an object for either attitude and further, for there to be
a reason to choose between faith and theory. The beast is the reification of the
choice between these modes of value. One way to attempt to ease the tension
is to remove the perceived incompatibility and this is something Coltart is keen
to do by attempting to reconcile Buddhism with psychoanalysis: ‘There does
not seem to me to be any area of absolutely radical disagreement or clash
between [psychoanalysis and Buddhism]’ (Coltart 1996c, p. 128).
618 Philip Kime

Coltart, to her credit, attempts again and again to reconcile the tension. There
is an attempt to equate Winnicott's ‘True Self’ with the Buddhist ‘no self’ (ibid.,
p. 134–35) which I find unconvincing since it operates on the level of contents,
seemingly equating one theoretical object with another when it is quite clear
that Winnicott's ‘True Self’ is not fundamentally an absence of definition but
a thoroughly Western true definition. It is the very (Western) notion of true
which Buddhism questions and there is no way of getting round this with an
equation of any contents at all. In the end, even Coltart seems to find it
unconvincing as she says that the Buddhist ‘no self’ ‘operates on another
philosophical level altogether’ (Coltart 1996c, p. 135) and therefore is not
really a candidate for equation with anything on the mundane level of the
world and psychoanalysis. In addition, a further, unconvincing, attempt is
made to reconcile the tension through the modern tactic of material reduction
(Coltart 1986, p. 8).
Psychoanalysis was a significant part of Coltart's identity and it is hardly
surprising therefore that there was a strong desire to reconcile these two
powerful elements. In my own development of an analytic identity, I have
found it frustrating to attempt to reconcile such things on the basis of their
contents; that is, on the basis of what they assert since it is these very
contents that define them as separate concerns in the first place. This is why
I try to concentrate on the structural aspects of analysis rather than the
contents such as the particular imagery involved. Giegerich is helpful here
with his radical model of neurosis which highlights the structural
absoluteness required for neurosis, an absoluteness which is the absoluteness
of spiritual need (Giegerich, 2013a). One sees this in Coltart's defensive
statements about the theory and technique quoted above – they tend towards
defence of the absolute value of such theory and technique which is hidden
spirituality infusing the psychoanalytic practice. In my experience, it is not
easy to spot such structural aspects and so we fall back on contentful
comparisons which inevitably leave us with tensions and the necessity of
finding some sort of relation between two or more elements which seem to
be completely separate. Of course, this all changes the meaning of the word
‘spiritual’ considerably as compared with everyday usage but this is
inevitable since colloquial definitions of such subtle terms are never adequate
for psychology.
The division of the goal from the process, the faith of the aim from the theory
of the route, the beast from Bethlehem, is something that I cannot reconcile with
my own experience. I gradually began to give up the idea that spirituality/faith
and theory/technique are different things. Being a practitioner, one decides
between them on the basis of how best to relate to something (usually, a
patient or an aspect of a patient) and this ‘something’ is then structurally
reified, the beast is born out of the unsophistication of the analyst. The beast
and its progress can be seen rather as the image of the psychological
understanding of the analyst. For me, this has meant that ‘spiritual’ and
The border of Bethlehem 619

‘theory’ have come to mean very different things as compared with their usual
associations and so I tend to avoid using the terms as much as possible, either
with patients or colleagues. They not only cause confusion but I also find
them hardly useful at all, because concepts eventually, if one persists, develop
themselves into a species of feeling tone which is of real use in sessions. It is a
type of feeling tone which is emphatically not possible without the
sophistication of ideas which precedes it. For this reason, I find Coltart's
Buddhism significant, following on as it does from a solid ground of theory
and technique and implying that it is no good bypassing thinking things
through thoroughly and instead beginning directly with a thought-
transcending faith. In the West, this jumping straight to faith is always hollow
because it artificially imitates the (utterly Western) phenomenon of bypassing
direct experience through the application of pre-existing theory. A short cut is
only a short cut when one knows that and what one is bypassing. Coltart, in
this respect, was one of the few convincing Western Buddhists even though
the tension which this created in her was unresolvable because the conflict
was experienced as a conflict of contents.

Emotional sensitivity and emotional involvement

The putative distinction between emotional sensitivity and involvement is, I feel,
tremendously important – not only for an understanding of Coltart's work and
how the fundamental internal tension I have attempted to describe manifests in
a particular applied area – but in general for any practitioner in the field.
Coltart's emphatic defence of emotional sensitivity and ‘authentic affect’ on
the part of the analyst is unapologetic (Coltart 1990a, p. 161). One can feel
in this the tense awareness of the potential social condemnation that is
diffused by a swift averral that ‘being, not doing’ is meant; ‘emotional being’
rather than ‘emotionally directed action’. Socially, this distinction is rigorous
and has clear sense and meaning. As a distinction with any depth-
psychological value, I feel it is dishonest and largely worthless. In a field
which claims to have sophisticated the concrete social notions of, for
example, ‘action’, ‘object’ and ‘intention’, the idea that there exists a
psychological distinction between the analyst's emotional being and
emotional action is remarkable for its naïveté.
One cannot in any way blame Coltart for this distinction since it is one to
which we are all terribly sensitive to due to the extra-psychological (one
should also stress, un-psychological) demands of the practicalities inherent in
the context of practice. Here, in the display of ‘emotional being’, the analyst
is saved from perdition by the over-stated requirement of ‘scrupulous’ self-
observation. The best way I can find to describe the feeling I have with such
phrases in Coltart is that they feel to me like phrases added during final
editing to weaken the socially corrosive impact of real faith. The sense of
620 Philip Kime

ethical panic which is (not unreasonably) felt to emanate from Coltart's brave
and accurate descriptions of the de-mythologized emotional dynamics of
analysis seems to panic even the writer herself and needs to be assuaged by
the shoring up of theory and technique with serious sounding adjectives.
Given Coltart's view of faith as a higher and orthogonal element, the
augmentation of theory and technique with socially serious adjectives as a
bulwark against the potentially ethically charged consequences is simply
futile. The tension between faith and practice enshrined here in the inter-
personal dynamics of emotional being and acting is the familiar tension
already considered. Here we see it expressed via a vocationally familiar fear,
clouding the tension by making it seem so necessarily soluble. Indeed, Coltart
is not concerned at all times to uphold the ‘scrupulous’ standards which hold
back the ethical ambiguity. Discussing taking on a psychoanalytic case of
ulcerative colitis, she says: ‘I was keen to learn about the illness, I had a half-
empty practice … what the hell, I took him’ (Coltart 1996b, p. 98). This is
‘emotionally directed action’ (not directed at the patient but this is irrelevant
since it involves the patient anyway), arguably going against her
imprecations against financial exploitation. I would personally defend
Coltart's decision on the basis that the distinction between emotional being
and emotionally directed action is psychologically inappropriate. In
analytical situations, emotional being and acting are the same thing even if
the social and historical setting in which analysis occurs, prefers or assumes
that they are different.
This manifestation of the tension in Coltart is one which I think we all know
in some form. We prefer not to feel the inherent danger and risks of
psychoanalysis by instituting an artificial and psychologically irrelevant
barrier between ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ and then try to stay on the ‘thinking’
side. I found myself feeling more and more dishonest over time with this sort
of distinction. It makes one feel ‘professional’ to the detriment of psychology
itself, which does not essentially notice or care about such distinctions, it
partly being the discovery that such distinctions are not so clean-cut. Having
emotional reactions or electing to suppress them is all the same
psychologically and is the reason why I am certain that most psychoanalysts
never dream of discussing their authentic, uncensored thoughts about patients
with anyone, supervisors included
The only way I have been able to resolve my feeling of dishonesty in
maintaining what I see as a fiction of ‘being’ versus ‘doing’ is to accept that
the feared ‘doing’ is an inevitable part of psychoanalysis. One does not get
to choose whether to be emotionally involved in a particular interpretation,
interaction or discussion with a patient. If there is a transference relation of
any kind, one is involved and that is that; what one feels is already ‘done’.
One plays by the social rules but not because they are also psychological
rules – between these spheres there is a real, unpsychological tension which
one must merely bear.
The border of Bethlehem 621

Conclusion
I would like to say something briefly about how the position underlying this
examination of Coltart relates to recent debates about relational versus
traditional analysis.6 Coltart's case studies often prefigure, in her changing
attitude towards classical strictures of practice, themes taken up by
relational analysis. In the debate regarding relational analysis, the
structural split becomes apparent in the way that certain traditional
theoretical ideas are seen as either grounding or restrictive in respect of
analytical practice. The essence of the controversy comes out in the
metaphor of landscapes and maps (Meredith-Owen 2013, p. 608) that
echoes the metaphorical geometry of position within which Coltart's
metaphor of the beast is couched. The same analysis therefore applies –
there is no division in psychology between the landscape and the map,
and it is this lack of such a division which defines psychology. There is
not, in time, first the landscape of the psyche and thereafter one's
navigation around it, mapped or not. Just as Coltart's beast does not
exist apart from our notion of it, the relational controversy displays the
same structural issues, played out in a different vocabulary but essentially,
geometrically the same. It is neither possible to disregard the traditional
landscape nor to orient oneself, without a map, with ‘self appointed
authority’ (ibid., p. 593). It is also not possible to resort to the desperate
trick of simply saying ‘both/and’ and thereby hope to keep everyone
happy with a clumsy concatenation. The reason why neither ‘either/or’
nor ‘both/and’ will do is because there are simply not two things keep
apart or force together in the first place.
Coltart is remarkable for her attempt to engage with different manifestations
of an essential dichotomy in the field. I think that the tension is particularly
clear in Coltart because of her overt non-reductive consideration of Buddhism
and the attempts she makes to reconcile it with her beloved psychoanalysis.
Not really agreeing with the dualistic model that results from setting faith
against theory and likewise not being convinced by subsequent attempts to
reconcile the two, I find that the tension remains a constant throughout
Coltart's work. I mentioned at the outset that this tension in its various
guises and the desire for its reconciliation are in fact what Coltart speaks of
as the ‘unthinkable’. That is, the slouching beast which approaches Bethlehem
is the personification rather of the analyst's understanding of this tension.
Rather than tracking a literal, undeveloped aspect of the patient in the
progress of the beast, the impossible and artificial distinction between faith
and theory generates an interplay which requires a subject in which to act out
the illusory dance. This is our slouching beast which, for all the poetic

6
Recently summarized by, for example Colman (2013a); Colman (2013b); Meredith-Owen
(2013).
622 Philip Kime

metaphor, is not a real entity at all but rather an image for the development of
psychological thought itself.

References
Bion, W.R. (1962). Learning From Experience. London: Karnac.
Colman, W. (2013a). ‘Bringing it all back home. How I became a relational analyst’.
Journal of Analytical Psychology 58, 4, 470–90.
——— (2013b). ‘Reflections on knowledge and experience’, Journal of Analytical
Psychology 58, 2, 200–18.
Coltart, N. (1985a). ‘The practice of psychoanalysis and Buddhism’. In Slouching
Towards Bethlehem. London: Free Association Books.
——— (1985b). ‘The treatment of a transvestite’. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
London: Free Association Books.
——— (1986). ‘Slouching towards Bethlehem or thinking the unthinkable in
psychoanalysis’. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem. London: Free Association Books.
Coltart, N.(1987). ‘On the tightrope. Therapeutic and non-therapeutic factors in
psychoanalysis’. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem. London: Free Association Books.
Coltart, N. (1990a). ‘The analysis of an elderly patient’. In Slouching Towards
Bethlehem. London: Free Association Books.
——— (1990b). ‘What does it mean: “Love is not enough”?’. In Slouching Towards
Bethlehem. London: Free Association Books.
——— (1991). ‘The silent patient’. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem. London: Free As-
sociation Books.
——— (1993a). How to Survive as a Psychotherapist. London: Sheldon Press.
——— (1993b). Slouching Towards Bethlehem. London: Free Association Books.
——— (1996a). ‘A philosopher and his mind’. In The Baby and the Bathwater. London:
Karnac.
——— (1996b). ‘Blood, shit and tears: a case of ulcerative colitis treated by
psychoanalysis’. In The Baby and the Bathwater. London: Karnac.
Coltart, N.(1996c). ‘Buddhism and psychoanalysis revisited’. In The Baby and the
Bathwater. London: Karnac.
Coltart, N. (1996d). ‘The baby and the bathwater’. In The Baby and the Bathwater.
London: Karnac.
——— (1996e). The Baby and the Bathwater. London: Karnac.
Giegerich, W. (2013a). Neurosis. The Logic of a Metaphysical Illness. New Orleans,
Louisiana: Spring Journal Books.
——— (2013b). Collected English Papers. Vol. 5: The Flight into the Unconscious. An
Analysis of C.G. Jung's Psychology Project. New Orleans, Louisiana: Spring Journal
Books.
Meredith-Owen, W. (2013). ‘Are waves of relational assumptions eroding traditional
analysis?’. Journal of Analytical Psychology 58, 5, 593–614.

TRANSLATIONS OF ABSTRACT

La liberté de Nina Coltart à aborder des domaines sensibles, tels que la spiritualité et le
Bouddhisme, dans un cadre psychanalytique, a ouvert les frontières entre les différentes
communautés psychanalytiques. Cet article vise à identifier une tension philosophique
bien ancrée qui parcourt plusieurs aspects de l'œuvre de Coltart, en commençant par
son livre « Slouching towards Bethlehem…or thinking the unthinkable in
psychoanalysis » (« Aller vers Bethléem en s'avachissant… ou penser l'impensable en
The border of Bethlehem 623

psychanalyse »). En explorant ce sujet central à la psychologie des profondeurs - la

distinction entre les contenus pensables et impensables - l'auteur soutient que cela n'est
pas une distinction fondamentale dans l'œuvre de Coltart, mais que c'est plutôt un
exemple particulier d'une dichotomie structurelle plus fondamentale qui infuse son
approche et qui prend différentes formes. C'est la grandeur et la sincérité des écrits de
Coltart qui font de ceci un exercice utile, pas seulement pour comprendre la structure
de son travail mais en mettant en lumière quelques-unes des tensions structurelles qui
imprègnent généralement les recherches en psychologie des profondeurs.

Mots clés: Coltart, Bethléem, Bête, Bouddhisme, réification, frontière, ontologie

Die Freiheit, die Nina Coltart sich nimmt, delikate Bereiche wie Spiritualität und
Buddhismus innerhalb eines psychoanalytischen Rahmens anzugehen, hat Grenzen
zwischen unterschiedlichen psychoanalytischen Gemeinschaften geöffnet. Diese
Abhandlung unternimmt es, eine tief verwurzelte philosophische Spannung zu
identifizieren, die sich durch einige Aspekte von Coltarts Arbeiten zieht, beginnend bei
ihrem 'Slouching towards Bethlehem … or, thinking the unthinkable in
psychoanalysis'. Bei der Untersuchung dieses zentralen Themas der Tiefenpsychologie,
der Unterscheidung zwischen denkbarem und undenkbarem Inhalt, argumentiert der
Autor, daß es nicht um eine grundlegende Unterscheidung in Coltarts Werk geht,
sondern vielmehr um ein besonderes Beispiel für eine grundlegendere strukturelle
Dichotomie, die ihren Ansatz durchdringt und die sich in verschiedenen Gestalten
manifestiert. Es sind die Breite und die Aufrichtigkeit von Coltarts Schriften, die diese
zu einer nützlichen Lektüre machen, nicht nur um die Struktur ihres Werkes zu
verstehen, sondern auch um einige der strukturellen Spannungen zu beleuchten, welche
tiefenpsychologische Bestrebungen generell durchdringen.

Schlüsselwörter: Coltart, Bethlehem, Bestie, Buddhismus, Verdinglichung, Grenze,

Ontologie

La libertà con cui Nina Coltart ha esplorato aree delicate, come la spiritualità ed il
Buddismo, all'interno di una cornice psicoanalitica, ha aperto i confini tra le diverse
comunità psicoanalitiche. Questo articolo si propone di identificare una tensione
filosofica profondamente radicata che attraversa diversi aspetti del lavoro della
Coltart, a cominciare dal suo “Girovagando verso Betlemme… ovvero pensare
l'impensabile in psicoanalisi”. Nell'esplorare questo tema centrale nella psicologia del
profondo, cioè la differenza tra contenuti pensabili e non pensabili, l'Autore afferma
che non si tratta di una distinzione fondamentale, nel lavoro della Coltart, ma
piuttosto si tratta di un chiaro esempio della dicotomia strutturale e fondante che
pervade il suo approccio e che si manifesta in diversi aspetti. È l'ampiezza e la sincerità
degli scritti della Coltart che ne fa un esercizio utile, non solamente per comprendere
la struttura del suo lavoro, ma anche per far luce su alcune tensioni strutturali che
caratterizzano la pratica della psicologia del profondo in generale

Parole chiave: Coltart, Betlemme, Bestia, Buddismo, reificazione, confine, ontologia

624 Philip Kime

Cвoбoдa Hины Кoлтapт oбpaщaeтcя к дeликaтным для пcиxoaнaлизa oблacтям, тaким,

кaк дуxoвнocть и буддизм, и oткpывaeт гpaницы мeжду paзличными
пcиxoaнaлитичecкими cooбщecтвaми. B этoй cтaтьe дeлaeтcя пoпыткa
идeнтифициpoвaть глубoкo укopeнeннoe филocoфcкoe нaпpяжeниe,
пpocлeживaющeecя в нecкoлькиx acпeктax paбoт Кoлтapт, нaчинaя oт ee paбoты
«Heуклюжe пpoбиpaяcь в Bифлeeм… или мыcли o нeмыcлимoм в пcиxoaнaлизe».
Иccлeдуя цeнтpaльную тeму глубиннoй пcиxoлoгии – o paзличeнии мeжду мыcлимым
и нeмыcлимым coдepжaнии, aвтop дoкaзывaeт, чтo этo ecть нe фундaмeнтaльнoe
oтличиe paбoт Кoлтapт, a, нaoбopoт, oпpeдeлeнный пpимep бoлee cущecтвeннoй
cтpуктуpнoй диxoтoмии, пpoнизывaющeй ee пoдxoд и пpoявляющeйcя в нecкoлькиx
paзныx oбличьяx. Шиpoтa и иcкpeннocть cтиля Кoлтapт дeлaют чтeниe ee
пpoизвeдeний пoлeзным упpaжнeниeм нe тoлькo для пoнимaния cтpуктуpы ee paбoт,
нo и для ocвeщeния нeкoтopыx cтpуктуpныx нaпpяжeний, пpoнизывaющиx пoиcки
глубинныx пcиxoлoгoв в цeлoм.

Ключевые слова: Кoлтapт, Bифлeeм, Звepь, буддизм, oвeщecтвлeниe, гpaницa, oнтoлoгия

La libertad con la que Nina Coltart aborda áreas delicadas como espiritualidad y
Budismo en un contexto psicoanalítico, ha abierto fronteras entre diferentes
comunidades psicoanalíticas. El presente ensayo propone identificar una tensión
filosófica profundamente enraizada que discurre a través de diversos aspectos del
trabajo de Coltart comenzando por su ‘Caminando hacia Bethlehem … o, pensando lo
impensable en psicoanálisis’. Al explorar este tema central en la psicología profunda,
sobre la distinción entre los contenidos pensables e impensables, el autor afirma que
no es una distinción fundamental en el trabajo de Coltart, sino que es, más bien un
ejemplo de una más fundamental dicotomía estructural, la cual permea su
aproximación y se manifiesta de diversas maneras. La amplitud y sinceridad de la
escritura de Coltart resulta un útil ejercicio, no solamente para comprender la
estructura de su trabajo, sino para iluminar algunas tensiones estructurales que
permean las actividades de la psicología profunda en general.

Palabras clave: Coltart, Bethlehem, Beast, Buddhism, reificación, frontera, ontología

Nina Coltart 在精神分析架构中讨论类似灵性和佛学那些微妙领域时的自由,打开了不

同精神分析团体间的隔阂。这篇文章提出了一种哲学的倾向,它深刻地贯穿在Coltart
以“漫不经心地走向伯利恒…..或思考精神分析中那些不可思考的”以来的工作的多
个方面。通过对深度心理学这个核心主题,即可思考的和不可思考的内容间的区别的
主题的探索,作者主张,弥漫在Coltart的取向中的,以及在多个不同伪装下显现出来的,
并非Coltart的某种具有鲜明特征的工作方式,而是作为基本结构的二分法的详尽案例。
Coltart作品的宽宏和真诚把这变成一个有用的练习,这不仅仅有利于理解她工作的结
构,还是利于阐明那些弥漫在深度心理学追求中的结构性的倾向。

关键词: Coltart, 伯利恒, 野兽, 佛学, 具体化, 边界, 本体论