Tribute to Neville Symington
By Dr Cathy Fraser
It is no doubt unusual and unexpected for a patient to stand up and talk about their analyst, but as we all know: Neville was not mainstream, he was innovative, one to speak his mind independently and to encourage us to do the same. He was an agent for change. So I offer this tribute to Neville as an expression of honour, respect and gratitude.
Having psychoanalysis was the most difficult process I’ve ever endured. It is also the most significant thing I’ve undertaken in my life. I’m glad I had an analysis, and I’m grateful that Neville was my analyst.
So I speak as a representative of those of us at the receiving end of Neville Symington’s work as an analyst. We analysands would be spread far and wide in both time and place. My reason for referring to anything personal is purely for the purpose of highlighting Neville as a person and a thinker, reminders of how much we can keep learning from him, and keep benefitting from the richness and originality of his thinking.
Of course the relationship in every dyad is unique, we would have all related to Neville differently with our own transference issues. So I can’t know how it is for others, but I do hope that more often than not when I say “I, me, my” that it relates to “We, us, our”. We analytic sisters and brothers who do not speak to each other within this analytic family, do we call ourselves patients, clients, people? I know from reading Neville’s writings and listening to him present case examples that he referred to each person as who they were, each as a unique individual person. I cannot know that my words will hold the same meaning for others in our ‘family’, but one thing I’m sure that we share is gratitude. I speak to say thank you to Neville. We are privileged to have been at the receiving end of his open-mindedness in his quest for truth and healing. He listened, he challenged, he confronted in the quest for understanding. His work was about helping us know and trust our own mind, to heal, to be free, and to live our lives more fully.
In losing Neville, we analysands have lost the custodian of our many secrets and all the details of our complex family histories. Every therapist and patient share a secret shorthand language, able to refer to a metaphor or a dream theme or thinking pattern in summary without having to explain. We will all miss that. Now we patients carry that within, held by our memory of Neville.
I had the privilege of a long psychoanalysis with Neville, which started not long after he arrived in Australia in 1986. I knew nothing about psychoanalysis when I started, and I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I didn’t really choose him; I was just lucky to be given his name and phone number scribbled on a yellow Post-It by a Balint group colleague. I still laugh remembering my shock when he said he couldn’t offer me a regular time until next year. It was late October. “Oh no” I said, “I just need to come for a handful of sessions about this particular problem, I’m not intending to still be here next year.” After much resistance, I came to see something of the need, vulnerability and damage in myself that he saw, and before too long I had committed to my fifty-minute hour five times a week, squeezing appointments in between my work as a GP, and later as a therapist. My first appointments were in a block of units on Grandview St in Pymble, rooms he shared with Joan. The dream I had the night before my first appointment included them both and was in a way prophetic of the journey ahead, which I didn’t realise I was starting. I knew absolutely nothing about Neville Symington, and it was long before the days of Google. It was also before any of his books were published. From them, I learned more later. We patients learn from what we can, hungry for knowledge of this person who is so significant to us. Of course, we could all read something into his choice of art on the walls of his consulting room. I also recall a black and white photograph in the waiting room of a young boy walking along a tree-lined dirt track, hurling a stone into the countryside, which to me symbolised a freedom I didn’t yet feel. The old orange Mazda Neville drove for many years told me something about him. I recall him wearing a striped shirt one day which had a huge rip down one long sleeve. I learned something else about him when he wore it again the next day!
Soon Neville and Joan moved their rooms to the house opposite Pymble park. A young tree fern was planted at the front door and this served as a measure of time for me, towering high above my head by the time I left. Many hours were spent by we analysands lying on the couch, looking ahead at a beautiful painting of a path winding through trees, a metaphor for each of us on our individual journeys. Under the painting at the foot of the couch was a lovely carved small wooden table which displayed a beautiful ceramic sculpture of a mother with a child on her knee, not actually holding, yet in a way held. Another metaphor for Neville’s connection with us lying on the couch.
It took me time to trust Neville, to really trust him. There was nothing he did to threaten that trust, it was my issue, and perhaps an issue which other patients have also battled through. His honesty, his integrity, his patience and persistence all helped.
The relationship with an analyst is peculiar, such an intimate sharing of anything and everything over many hours, weeks, months and years. Intimate and profound, yet with no touching.
He helped each of us become our own person, with our own mind. We travelled on long arduous journeys with him seeking our Truth. We would all have endured tough emotions. I know I felt love but of course that went with feeling hate. I look back at the many times I felt intensely enraged with him. At the time of course, we can’t know how much someone is helping us by allowing and surviving such anger. Later, years later, when there was space for humour, it was good to be able to laugh together.
Termination of analysis feels very final. It would have been tough for us all working towards the end of such a meaningful relationship. It meant a lot to me that I was able to return to consult Neville many years later during times of grief and major changes in my life. It felt very different sitting face to face then rather than lying on the couch. On several occasions on referring to issues in my analysis in the past, Neville would point out that he would deal with things differently now, that he saw certain approaches as a mistake, that he kept learning and changing. It takes a lot for an analyst to say this, and it can be so helpful to the person in front of them.
A couple of years ago after the death of my sister, I saw Neville at his home a few times. Again, his availability and flexibility was of great value. The last communication I had with Neville was by email after I’d travelled to London and Portugal in July this year. We tried to make a time to have a conversation but unfortunately it never happened. I was pleased to be able to share with him at least briefly by email that interesting new facts revealed to me by my cousin linked to his theories during my analysis, and confirmed his beliefs relating to my mother and her state of mind during her pregnancy and in my early days. Neville believed that a mother’s attitude can affect the unborn child and it was an incredible discovery to have this confirmed, and to bring it all together in my mind. My understanding of his own life story was added to when visiting Porto and the Douro Valley. On arrival in the magnificently beautiful Valley, my husband and I did a port winery tour and within minutes I was amazed to hear the name Symington, the family being so much part of the history of port. I became aware of what a family history he left behind, and the title of his memoirs “A Different Path” made all the more sense to me.
I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to Neville. I heard the news of his illness from the APAS email, and managed to have SMS contact with his son Andrew the night before he died. All through that night, I was processing it in sleep and wakefulness, my sleep being both restless and strangely restful, a weird mix of dreams and dreamlike states, my head constantly filled with Neville. I thought about all the conversations we’d had about death and things spiritual. I dreamed I spoke - with his blessing - on behalf of his patients, and composed what I have shared with you. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, a very strong feeling came over me – I had this welcome sense of Neville reaching out warmly to all of us who knew him. I was filled with deep gratitude. I felt held, as I hope and imagine others did. I then woke at about 5 am and sensed he had left us. A text message a few hours later confirmed what I already knew.
Neville has left an enriching legacy. The world is a better place for him having lived in it. Our worlds as patients are better. We have all learned so much from Neville and can keep learning and growing. The best tribute is to keep him, and all he represents, in our minds. He would want us to keep questioning, keep being open to change, keep making progress, keep making a difference, keep living our lives well.