Comments on friendship in a polarized world

In this commentary, I apply psychoanalytic theory to a story of a friendship that is fractured by the strains of sociocultural situatedness and political polarization. In addition to the concepts of selective inattention and disjunctive impasse, I rely on an expansion of Anton Hart’s radical openness. From this sensibility, participants are challenged to relinquish presumptions about themselves and each other; be open to their negative impact on each other; be curious about what they are willing to take in, and keep out; and commit to turning towards, not away, from each other. I am advocating that radical openness extend beyond a psychoanalytic framework, into the realm of social relating—in this instance, to a friendship. In this process, we are challenged to see ourselves how others see us, and convey to others the complexity of our own experiences, simultaneously remaining open to how we see others and hear their idiomatic complexities. Psychoanalytic thinking, with its embrace of contradictions and complexities, dissociations and disavowals, attachments, shameful self-states, and multiple ways of relating to each other, can help us understand what occurred in the rupture of the friendship and, to my mind, is uniquely helpful in considering avenues of repair. It is to psychoanalysis that we can turn in such difficult personal and sociopolitical moments.