A Letter to Red Clinic

To each one,

I was welcomed into the Red Clinic as a practicing psychoanalyst during a period of wandering. It was also the beginning of a period of conflict between the West and Russia, to call a spade a spade. As some of you know, I was not untouched by that conflict.

My experience with those patients referred to me from your clinic has necessitated a change in my clinical orientation. Most recently, when the important question of money was broached, or, rather, the manner in which it was broached, as a question of a minimum fee, I found myself opting to act against the comfort of a practice which afforded me the privilege of an income, toward the temptation to restore the cutting edge of my own practice. I hope that this does not read as arrogance on my part, since it comes at a cost; rather, it is humility to the surprises that are revealed to me in the clinic.

[The outward expressions of the group have made working with patients quite difficult. I am concerned that the group has progressed too far into the activist discourse at the expense of the psychoanalytic one, which is far superior.]

In the last month or so I’ve found a way to dissolve my relationship to this particular group, but not without admiration for the experience that you are together conceiving and the lessons that I have been taught. Thank you for welcoming me into the Red Clinic for all of these months.

With Kind Regards,

Duane Rousselle