Working in the Trenches Commentary on Ruth Fallenbaum's Paper

In this paper I respond to Ruth Fallenbaum's account of clinical work with a group of women postal workers. I raise questions about the intersect of political analysis and psychoanalysis, the particular dynamic and structural demands on women workers, as well as the dynamics of precocity in relation to poverty and striving. The work Fallenbaum reports is a wonderful exemplar of clinical work that must remain sensitive on its own terms while the clinician keeps an eye on matters of class, race, and gender. Her essay makes a good argument for the importance of interdisciplinary thinking in clinical psychoanalysis as well as the importance of models of subjectivity in which multiple narratives, loyalties, and experiences are normative.