I am mad about tennis. This is a new found middle aged love affair. If psychotherapy is my vocation, tennis is my avocation. It makes me whole. To send myself to sleep, I dream of hitting a crisp forehand. Again and again. I watch YouTube videos on how to serve big. I have tickets for Queens, and Wimbledon. I am so jealous of my hitting partner, who went to see the Australian Open men's and women's finals. He live streamed Keys as she walked around the Rod Laver Stadium, carrying her huge silver trophy. As middle aged men, we only ever communicate by text and WhatsApp. This was one of the few times in fifteen years he actually called me! In that moment we were tennis fans, overcome by emotion. Sure, at times the tournament, with all its tears and tantrums, reminded me of a real life Squid Games. But, to be honest I found it moving too.

There is an enchanted parallel universe running underneath my everyday grey existence. Somedays I imagine I am talking to the players. Somedays, I swagger around, imagining I can serve the ball at 200 kph. Freud talked about sex, and Jung about spirit. But what about the Tennis Drive? Is the squishy yellow ball a baby? Or the malleable human ego? All that sweltering athleticism. Libido in buckets. Skin, our largest organ, on show. Sublimation. Life. Death. Breakdown. Breakpoint. Breakthrough. Racquet smashing. Tears. Swearing. Outbursts. The meaning of life itself. It has both sex and spirit! Some analysts talk about tennis, penetration and sexual conquest. Others talk about its religious and archetypal dimension. Who knows? All I know is that it does something for me. In my book tennis coaches and players have solved the ancient mind-body problem. The philosopher Descartes figured, "Cogito Ergo Sum."  I think therefore I am. But surely it should be I hit therefore I am? 

Every morning, you can find me watching Eurosport with my bowl of porridge. During the cold windy days of January I have welcomed the heat of night time Australian tennis. What a relief. I don't need a cold shower. No Mr Wim Hof for me! But I need to see a sun drenched crackling backhand to make me feel alive! By profession, I am a psychoanalytical psychotherapist. Yet, if you cut me I bleed the brick red colour of Roland Garros clay tennis courts. I'd swap the collected works of Mr Freud for the catch phrase of the world's best tennis player, Jannik Sinner:

"I like to dance in the pressure storm"

I treasure a slick coffee table book Tennis Courts by Nick Pachelli. It has pictures of courts from tropical and mundane locations around the world. When I get a break, I imagine visiting them, one by one. Did you know that the radical psychiatrist R.D. Laing died on a tennis court in St Tropez? Did you know that the relational psychotherapist Stephen Mitchell, was a great player? He argued that therapy involved two subjectivities! The mystical analyst Wilfred Bion asked us to imagine watching a tennis match with no lights on! He said all that we would be able to see are the holes in the net. It was his way of getting therapists to stay in state of not-knowing!

For me tennis is even more central to my work. I see the therapeutic encounter very much like a tennis game. In a tennis match 60-90 percent of the time is “dead time”; in therapy there may be lots of silences. There are different types of silences on the court, and in the consulting room. But the sometimes there are long rallies. Verbal lobs. Furious smashes. Words buzz across the room. In those moments no theory is any use at all! In therapy and tennis you have to trust your instinct and go for it. You can think about what happened later!

As I was writing this piece, I ventured down to my tennis club. The wonderful club coach, Hamid, was free. I asked him for some help. He has a relaxed and self-effacing style. He showed me how to adapt my "inferior function." The inferior function, according to the Swiss analyst Von Franz, behaves "after the manner of a fool hero, the divine fool, or the idiot hero. He represents the despised part of the personality, the ridiculous and unadapted part, but also that part which builds the connection with the unconscious, and therefore holds the secret key to the unconscious totality of the person."

In my case, this meant developing my backhand. He asked me to hold the racquet loosely. I experienced an ecstatic state, a moment of conscious spontaneity. Later, he addressed my serve. He asked me to forget my world of words and bounce the ball three times, and touch it to the racquet. This simple act of concrete grounding, allowed me to hit the ball powerfully. What a chance meeting. Australia is at the opposite end of the world; my backhand and serve are the vulnerability in my game. Suddenly, everything is turned on it's head and I feel, for a moment, a complete player. Then it begins to rain and reality seeps back in. Still, allowing my inner idiot some freedom has opened up a whole new dimension in my game. Rather than defending from my weak backhand, I am now hitting freely, even attacking! I can't wait to play my hitting partner when he comes back with his Australian tan!

My motto this year is to be more Keys! Loosen up, relax. Hamid the coach says slow down. Don't rush. Loosen the death grip on the racquet. The looseness is what gives the body power. Sure Sinner is a winner. But Keys is the underdog who played out of her skin! No point in pretending to be somebody else. No point in choking, or holding back. Don't waste your time and money! Swing and follow through. Put your whole body into it. In the end the best therapists don't follow a rigid and dogmatic rule book. They don't clench. They have some give, some fluency. Move those feet.

The patients who get the most from their work don't try and mimic somebody else. They bring both their superior and inferior sides, light and shade, left and right. Coach Hamid says keep your feel on the ground. So, next time you're on the tennis court, or in the therapy room, loosen up, give yourself time, take help from the divine fool, and hit it out of the park!

Reading:

Psyche and Sports, Ed. Murray Stein and John Hollwitz

Psychoanalytical Perspectives on Intense Involvements in Sports, Ed. Irwin Hirsch