¹Philadelphia, USA

Correspondence: Dr Deborah Luepnitz, 4247 Locust St., Apt #817, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. E-mail: dalue@webtv.net

Abstract

This essay describes the author's experience as a pro_bono psychoanalyst/consultant at a residence for homeless women in Philadelphia. She has found most cogent to that work the ideas of Donald Winnicott (e.g., the holding environment, projective identification, countertransference) and those of Jacques Lacan (e.g., desire, the jouissance of the symptom, the insistence of the signifier). The article points to the interplay between social class and desire and suggests that the analyst's position may be that of a good-enough saint.