Tango, therapy and psychoanalysis

Last month my son announced he was learning to tango.  I was taken aback. He is a great mover and even did some ballet when he was a child, courtesy yours truly, when I still had a say on what he could/should do, then got hooked on martial arts and that was it, he never again wanted to wear his ballet shoes. Dancing the tango was the last thing I thought he might want to do, for I knew that unless something was about improving kicking and punching techniques, it just was not worth a second glance. But, clearly, I was wrong. It turns out that, like me, he is constantly looking for different ways of moving the body. A girlfriend keen on salsa made him try salsa for a while but he then saw a tango demo and  was bowled over. "It's just like sparring" he said. Is it really?
It made me feel like reviving my tango skills - I used to go to classes once upon the time but did not get very far with it. I thus decided to go to a tango class myself, a different one, as I dont particularly want to be with my son and his girlfriend - they are lovely but I dont want them around during my tango class, a sentiment which is pretty mutual.
In fact a group class was not enough for me: I booked a private lesson, one and a half hour just to myself. And I loved it! I turned up with stilettos which were too high - my pole dancing sandals - so had to do it using dance socks. My teacher, a Frenchman who has done years and years of tango, introduced me to the basics and I learnt a huge amount during my first class. I can dance a full tango!
What is so special about the tango?

First, you learn to trust your partner, who has to lead you. You learn to sense when you need to move as most of the time you look away from each other - at some point my teacher asked me to close my eyes and I had to take a leap of faith. Trust your body, that's what you need to do. And trust your partner.There are 'three' in a tango: your partner, the floor and the music.
Sparring and tango: I now begin to see the commonalities.
Argentinian tango is different from ballroom tango. The latter is more showy and involves more back bends (which, by the way, I love doing), whereas Argentinian tango is more subtle and intense.
Tango has also developed as a 'therapy': people suffering from Alzheimer, Parkinsons and other illnesses can do the tango and feel better. You can explore the website of Inner Tango to get a sense of what tango therapy is about.

(This is something I would like to come back to, in another post, as it seems to me that anything can have a therapeutic value. But let's go on).
I was intrigued  to find the website of Dr Susan Kavaler-Adler, a psychoanalyst who has written prolifically and who is also a tango dancer. Inevitably, Dr Kavaler-Adler brought the two together and so she has written about tango as a metaphor for the analytic process. Now this has really made me think:
"In Psychoanalysis, the analyst, like the female follower, needs to surrender all agendas, allowing free floating attention that opens the analyst's unconscious mind to being a receptive organ for the unconscious of the analysand (patient), as first spoken about by Sigmund Freud. The female follower in tango needs to relinquish anticipation of the leader's next moves, similar to the analyst surrendering "memory and desire" (British theorist, Wilfred Bion), when listening to and responding to the analysand (patient). The analyst allows all theory to be in the back of his/her mind as she surrenders to the moment and to tuning into where the patient is within that moment. The patient, like the male Argentine Tango leader, must be in the moment of the dance, allowing free associations to flow from the internal and unconscious life, not inhibiting himself with the defense of conscious controlled thinking through agendas. When this cannot happen resistances must become conscious and be addressed so as to open the avenues to true self spontaneity in the moment. The analyst, like the male tango leader listening to the music, listens to the music of the patient's internal life through associations, as well as through emotional and body feelings"

What else can I add?


(photography by Ama Saru, modelling by Alex B)