Reader n8chz (whose great blog you can’t find here) left some good questions about psychoanalysis that I want to address sin a separate post:
Psychoanalysis somehow seems expensive, but that’s because I’ve been told (perhaps by people I shouldn’t listen to) that real psychoanalysis is at least three 50-minute hours a week for something like five years, at with a practitioner with an MD, plus psychiatry residency, plus being psychoanalyzed, plus training in psychoanalsyis.
Today, most analysts refuse to do more than one hour-long session per week. I could go into details as to why they have departed from the Freudian model of four 40-minute sessions per week but I don’t want to bore. Suffice it to say, that these days hardly anybody practices this way. In extreme cases, an analyst might offer (and reluctantly, at that) two sessions per week for a short period of time. This is normally done when the analysand is in an acute stage. Four sessions per week are maybe suggested for people with terminal cancer or something as tragic and urgent.
Psychoanalysts don’t hold MDs, they don’t study psychiatry, they can’t and don’t want to prescribe drugs. The very words “doctor” and “psychiatry” make them wince. Psychoanalysis was born out of a rejection of psychiatry. Of course, there are analysts who follow Freud’s journey of studying psychiatry, getting massively disillusioned with it for obvious reasons, and switching to psychoanalysis.
Here is the kind of training a psychoanalyst needs to get to be considered one:
1. full personal psychoanalysis (at least once but often twice.)
2. assisting a practicing analyst.
3. constant and ongoing supervision.
The number of hours any individual analysand will require depends on:
1. the goal s/he wants to achieve.
2. the readiness of the analysand to solve his or her problems.
3. the analysand’s capacity to relinquish control and break out of the intellectual rut.
4. the analysand’s familiarity with the procedure.
Usually, the first 6 months of analysis are all about breaking through the very typical resistance structures. As we discussed before, psyche values nothing above stability and will cling to what is bad but familiar.
The technique of psychoanalysis is “supportive frustration.” While a psychotherapist consoles and comforts, an analyst will gently try to frustrate you during every session (except when you are in extreme distress.) If you don’t feel the need to say, “Oh my God, my analyst is so annoying!”, something is not going right.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Usually, the first 6 months of analysis are all about breaking through the very typical resistance structures. As we discussed before, psyche values nothing above stability and will cling to what is bad but familiar.”
Reistaance structures are why there is a liquification experience in shamanism, or dissolution, when the old character structures melt and this facilitates the difficult crossing. After that, the organs are washed and the bones that constitute the being have to be found and put back together.
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Which is why these are, in many ways, interchangeable approaches. The difference is that one of them is geared towards consumer mentality and another one isn’t.
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are you referring to new age shamanism and conflating me with that? If so it might be good to read a few sentences I have written to try to make up some lost ground. 🙂
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Of course, I meant that psychoanalysis is geared towards consumer mentality, not shamanism! Who do you take me for? 🙂 🙂
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Do you mean in the present model of it? I tell you it is very early here and I have paranoid ideations…
In any case, certainly, sleeping under a hibiscus bush as a means to explore radical freedom, as Marechera did, could not be considered commercial by any means. It is the diametric opposite of that.
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“Do you mean in the present model of it? I tell you it is very early here and I have paranoid ideations…”
– I know the feeling. 🙂 I’m saying that psychoanalysis serves a consumer mentality and shamanism doesn’t. 🙂 This was not an attack on you. Just the opposite. 🙂
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So good. I guess I am looking for attacks these days so I can sharpen my sword. Currently I am reading on Facbook about how gooks are easier to shoot that towel heads…
Not that I would even relate to that kind of viewpoint, but I am going further afield and who knows what may happen next.
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Be careful, my friend. There is a lot of stupidity out there.
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Yeah, I know, but I have encountered this brand of stupidity before, and I am just watching the interactions, since I am looking for material for my next book.
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I really like reading about your fascinating experiences with psychoanalysis. But I am wondering if you are not portraying psychotherapists a bit unfairly,,,. I am seeing a very good psychotherapist, and she does a lot more than just console me… I am often pretty upset by the sessions and I have learned some profound things that have changed me. She uses a Jungian approach, and we often discuss dreams, and sometimes I have to draw something as homework which we then interpret together. I have never had a real psychoanalysis, so I cannot compare….I like symbols, dreams and drawing more than just associating and talking, I feel it goes to the core of problems a lot faster, and I am not sure how those aspects are treated in classical psychoanalysis… is it really true that you just talk and talk about whatever comes to mind? Or are you supposed to always mention dreams that seem important? Does the therapist really help you interpret it or do you have to do the interpreting and he just listens? Do you sometimes also work with symbols during the therapy session?
Btw, do you know the TV series “In Treatment”? It is about a psychoanalyst and his clients. I find it really amazing. It is very complex and interesting.
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“She uses a Jungian approach”
– Jung is one of the creators of psychoanalysis. Jungians are by definition psychoanalysis.
” I have never had a real psychoanalysis, so I cannot compare….I like symbols, dreams and drawing more than just associating and talking,”
– You are describing psychoanalysis. 🙂
“is it really true that you just talk and talk about whatever comes to mind?”
– That depends because everybody is so different. I’m the “talk and talk” kind of person, so my analyst has to frustrate me by interrupting me all of the time. He doesn’t seem to be a naturally gregarious and effervescent sort of person but he adopts this persona around me to mirror my way of being. The poor guy has to be totally exhausted after the sessions. 🙂
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Good questions.
“Or are you supposed to always mention dreams that seem important?”
– It really helps to do so, which is why I make an effort to mention them.
“Does the therapist really help you interpret it or do you have to do the interpreting and he just listens?”
– Yes, he teaches me how to interpret them because the goal is to get me to the point where I will be able to do this for myself.
“Do you sometimes also work with symbols during the therapy session?”
– What do you mean by symbols?
Once again, thank you for the great questions!
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” Or are you supposed to always mention dreams that seem important? ”
Here is my dream from last night. I’m with my friend and we are going fast down a slope in a small vehicle like a go-kart and at the time my friend is Mike and I said, “so do you think I’m pretty tough or what?” and he says, “No, you’re not. You’re one of the poor in this town, not even a business owner of any sort.” And we were about to go into an area covered by water. Perhaps not “deep water”. Let us not enter any financial deep water. And then I said, “You can’t cross here, it is actually a lake,” but my friend (this time my childhood friend, Monique) disregarded what I said, and we went through it but our car got jammed at the wall on the far side and I had to leap out and pull her out of the lake bodily, by her leg.
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You have a negative father complex but you are well on your way to liberating yourself from it through the use of inner resources that you are accessing and the work you are doing to access these inner resources.
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I wish things were that simple, in terms of me having a “complex”. In my view the dream is about my failure in terms of Western society and the capacity to make money, but my actual success in going on thrilling adventures and in seeing the danger my friend was entering before she did and actually proving my mettle by rescuing her from the lake.
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“I wish things were that simple, in terms of me having a “complex”.”
– The father complex is simply a term: https://clarissasblog.com/2014/07/04/marihuana-and-negative-father-complex/
Everybody has some kind of relationship with society, workplace, figures of authority. That relationship is called “father complex.” We could call it “a pink giraffe with blue stripes” if the word “complex” is offputting.
” In my view the dream is about my failure in terms of Western society and the capacity to make money”
– This is the definition of a father complex (a.k.a pink giraffe 🙂 )
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Ah, but it is related to my dislike for modernity and office environments and having to deal with people whom I despise. In fact I viscerally despise people who want to fine-tune relationships or bring me their complaints or teach me Western, Christian morality. That is why I am on the outside of this society. Also I have a very weak immune system, which does not tolerate air conditioned environments. That’s not a complex–that’s just a certain state of physical frailty.
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A “complex” is just a word. If you want to call it “a certain state”, that is perfectly fine. I actually prefer “a pink giraffe”, but hey, we all have our tastes. 🙂
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I think if you stretch the language too much, you are already losing the meanings you want to retain as well as putting up wall against other meanings which may be more pertinent to a situation. Another word for this is dogmatism. But only intellectual fluidity is truly intellectual.
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I’m perfectly comfortable with the terminology of “mother/father complex.” Other people, however, are more comfortable with the giraffe. 🙂 Who cares, as long as the problems get resolved?
I get many emails from people who have serious problems with integrating themselves into a workplace. Sadly, they have a bizillion and one explanations as to why the forces of evil are objectively preventing them from holding a job and loving it. [I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU. YOU WILL BE PERFECTLY FINE. THESE ARE OTHER PEOPLE.] And these are all just rationalizations, empty verbiage. These problems could be addressed so easily if people just agreed to stop and look at what is actually going on. All I can do is try to get the word out, hoping that the information will reach somebody. And every once in a while, it does.
We all only get one life to live. We could spend that life wailing about evil bosses, mean co-workers, unfair labor laws and their uncle. Or we could get up every day and feel ecstatically happy to return to work. [STILL NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU.] This is a choice everybody can make today. Life is passing us by while we sit here, feeling miserable*.
* Those who are under the age of 20: if you feel miserable all of the time, that’s actually normal. Don’t worry, youth is the only condition that never returns after you get cured of it. 🙂
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Yeah, I am sure that many people are like that and you give me a really good example of why I do not like to be lumped in with contemporary Westerners — because rumor has it that they whine a lot about trivial issues. I’d much rather have my intellectual ideas attended to and treated seriously than be lumped in with a bunch of people who evoke my natural contempt.
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Problems in the workplace are hardly trivial. It’s a really crucial part of life.
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If their reasons are trivial, which is to say something inside their heads that can be fixed, then they are trivial, although the consequences can be dire.
An extremely important lesson that I have just finished learning is not to lump myself in with modern Westerners. They really do see the world differently and experience it differently and their emotional range is different as a rule. I think that insisting we are all the same is part of modernity — meaning it is precisely a large part of what I have been fighting to find my own authentic being. I think intellectual maturity means allowing things to be different from oneself.
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Everything is easier to fix than what’s inside our heads. 🙂
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In some respects that is often entirely true. In any case, there are some things that are even bigger than what is inside of our heads and if we lose sight of this, we can become fanatics or ideologues or dogmatists (etc.)
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Thanks for your reply! My therapist calls her method psychotherapy, not psychoanalysis though. Maybe a cultural difference between countries. To be a psychoanalyst here you need more than the education you describe, I think you have to study for an extra 4 years after studying psychology (on top of having your own analysis, assisting an analyst etc.)
I would have imagined that an analyst does not interrupt you in order not to break the stream of association, so that is interesting. My therapist interrupts me and gets annoyed if I get too negative or too self-pitying or put myself in a victim-role. This is very good for me, and when it happens very annoying. 🙂
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“I would have imagined that an analyst does not interrupt you in order not to break the stream of association, so that is interesting. My therapist interrupts me and gets annoyed if I get too negative or too self-pitying or put myself in a victim-role.”
– Mine is the same. 🙂 He gets this very funny panicky facial expression when I start blaming myself or call myself a stupid sheep. 🙂
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By symbols, I mean that the room where I have the therapy is full of postcards with different images and magnets with weird symbols, animals etc. on them. Sometimes she asks me to choose images or magnets to represent a problem without thinking about it, and arrange like I feel that the current situation is, and then change the arrangements to a situation like I would want it to be. Then we try to interpret it together. Do you do something like that as well? Or do you have to draw things? I guess it is not part of classical analysis?
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“By symbols, I mean that the room where I have the therapy is full of postcards with different images and magnets with weird symbols, animals etc. on them. Sometimes she asks me to choose images or magnets to represent a problem without thinking about it, and arrange like I feel that the current situation is, and then change the arrangements to a situation like I would want it to be.”
– We did something like this at the very beginning. He asked me to get magazines, cut out images that I associate with my mother and stick them in the order that seems right to me to a huge sheet of white paper. We did that a couple of times but I’m a lot more about words than images, so we haven’t done much since then.
“I guess it is not part of classical analysis?”
– The classical analysts who don’t integrate elements from different psychotherapies are quite few these days. My husband’s analyst is the classical Freudian type. And for my husband, that works extremely well. I can’t imagine him choosing magnets or cutting out pictures. But everybody is different, so obviously different approaches are needed. For instance, I know that the most productive sessions are the ones where clients have nothing to say and spend time in silence. But I’m congenitally incapable of being silent. Even if I had 4 sessions each day for ten years, I would not have trouble finding a million things to say. 🙂
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I agree that the relationship with work/work environment/boss can have something to do with the relationship with the father. In my case, it is exactly like this and I have been projecting a lot of my issues with my father onto my evil bosses, coworkers etc, and hoping that they give me something that I wanted from my father. This completely didn’t work out, obviously, which was hugely frustrating for me. Now I think I have managed to put the issue back where it belonged. Since I have done that, my extreme ambition to achieve things through work that I have had since I was a teenager has (at least temporarily) left me, which is very disorientating. So I understand fully why it is easier to ignore the roots of the problem and just continue living with the issues — it changes you so much that it leaves everything upside down… although I do hope part of my ambition will come back in a more constructive fashion. (This is not directed at musteryou, of course, just some thoughts about the father complex for people who may not believe that something like that exists… it does.)
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“So I understand fully why it is easier to ignore the roots of the problem and just continue living with the issues — it changes you so much that it leaves everything upside down”
– Exactly. We very often accept things as “this is just how I am.” But “just how I am” has reasons and it is fascinating to find out why “I just am” this way.
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Spending a session in silence is also impossible for me to imagine. I always have several things I want to talk about and can’t decide which. I don’t think this will ever change. 🙂
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“I always have several things I want to talk about and can’t decide which.”
– Same here. The very sight of another person – any other person – awakens in me an overpowering need to lecture, explain, and perform. 🙂 🙂
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Just because I noticed that almost all my comments were downvoted — which always proves my point for me that contemporary Westerners cannot bear to hear the view that there can be other perspectives and paradigms apart from the one/s they are familiar with — I will add one more point. It will fall on deaf ears too, and be downvoted (thus again confirming my point). But here it is just for laughs.
And actually I have stated this already on my blog and elsewhere, probably too many times already, but I am extremely comfortable with authority and do in fact like a military model for society since it was what I was brought up with. I don’t like a bottom-up model, though, where the consumer is the authority. I don’t think that works at all, and to me it speaks of great shame and makes me very sad.
The above paragraph relates to my contention that a blanket definition of “father complex” for problems I have described is rather faulty.
But once again we will see how faulty it is by how much I am disregarded or given a thumbs down, rather than meaningfully engaged with. I therefore point you to the forthcoming example of consumer mentality in all it gory [SICK] {sic}{sic}
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“Just because I noticed that almost all my comments were downvoted — which always proves my point for me that contemporary Westerners cannot bear to hear the view that there can be other perspectives and paradigms apart from the one/s they are familiar with”
– I think at this point, people might just be downvoting you because they know you will react. 🙂
“The above paragraph relates to my contention that a blanket definition of “father complex” for problems I have described is rather faulty.”
– Nobody gave such a definition to your problems, actually. I’m not even aware that you have problems. 🙂 I was only interpreting a dream. And any single dream gives just a tiny reflection of one’s situation at that given moment.
“But once again we will see how faulty it is by how much I am disregarded or given a thumbs down”
– If I know anything at all about human nature, I can predict that after this sentence, a downvote is inevitable. 🙂
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I’m not caring about the downvotes as such, as a gesture of whatever it is supposed to be. I’m quite ok about inviting that sort of thing, but I also recognise it is pointless. What needs to take place is an actual engagement with my ideas. The same is true on YouTube. And to my plain what my idea was in the post you responded to — it was the idea that people should engage with my ideas and not adopt a consumer mentality. By consumer mentality I mean passive hostility.
Also. The response I would expect that engages with my ideas will talk about paradigms and theories and not make assumptions about my character.
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OK, that was a fast downvote. Jennifer, did you do this yourself? And if now, the person who did it, do you realize that now Jennifer will think I DID IT? Because it appeared so fast? Own up to the downvote!
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No, I did it myself. I may as well be the first. I’m getting the hang of this Western culture contraption.
Now that THAT is out of the way, let us see if anyone can engage with my paradigm, let us say about preferring a top down authority system and disliking a bottom up one and whether “father complex” makes sense in terms of these complex, socially conditioned individual preferences.
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“whether “father complex” makes sense in terms of these complex, socially conditioned individual preferences”
– This depends on the goals one is pursuing. My goal is to inform people that it is possible to improve their lives without medication. Whether they choose to listen is up to them.
“let us see if anyone can engage with my paradigm, let us say about preferring a top down authority system and disliking a bottom up one”
– This is an interesting question. I have had experience with both, obviously. In my experience, people are massively happier with top-down. And I’m massively happier with bottom-up, even though it bugs me as hell. Today I was talking to a colleague about the defects of the bottom-up system and soon enough the conversation was reduced to “Oh, fuck those fucking fuckers, you know?” Still, I’ve seen the alternative, and, to me, it’s decidedly worse.
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I see. So we have a split father. Perhaps the bottom up father is actually a woman who tries to assault you through the MCDonald’s Drive Through window because you got her order wrong. She is the faterh-attacker, leading some people to have a father-attacker complex. Then there is the orderly father who is top-down, I mean in the really traditional sense, such as a good officer takes care of his men. Then there is the other split father who is a sadist and some people may have a complex about the sadist-father, who may at times be a girl.
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Yes, I obviously can’t exist at all in the patriarchal model. My “father” needs to step aside and let the McBurgers fly. 🙂
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I don’t know what that means, actually, because I am not already inside your paradigm reading it from the inside out. I’m very much outside of it in most ways.
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OOH, I’m downvoted, too! Good because I was starting to feel invisible on my own blog!
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I think Musteryou was downvoted by the well-fed “contemporary Westerner” my partner saw the other day at Kentucky Fried Chicken, who yelled at the minimum-wage earner, hardworking, immigrant cashier girl whose intelligence quotient was about 100 points higher than that of this hysterical consumer queen, because there wasn’t enough mayonnaise in her sandwich, till the cashier girl began to cry and was unable to continue her work.
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On the top down vs bottom up question: I would rather live in the latter. But I don’t see bottom up as a consumer mentality — I don’t mean that kind of bottom up. I mean active participation from all, not passive hostility.
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Active participation from all would be great but look at the most recent elections. Passive hostility is precisely what the majority exhibited.
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I have a different type of question. I heard from people who were under therapy in foreign countries using their second or third language during the therapy, that it wasn’t the same as undergoing through therapy on their native language. The main cause they mentioned is that people usually use a foreign language in a different way (even when they are fluent), they can hardly connect to their early memories on the foreign language, and they don’t express themselves so intuitively. Also, when the therapist talks, they also can’t have that deeper understanding that they would have if the therapist talked to them on their native language. So how do you experience this? You mentioned that you learned English when you were a kid, but many people learn the foreign language during their teen/adult years. For example would your psychoanalysis have the same effect, if its language was Spanish (which you learned as an adult)?
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Good, good questions.
Yes, it’s better to do it in your native language. Especially when we analyze dreams, I often have to explain to the analyst what the imagery associates with in Russian. For instance, we were recently analyzing a dream where I made blini and the first blini came out perfect. So I had to explain that there is an expression in Russian “the first blini always comes out bad.” And then we proceeded to figure out the symbolic meanings of that. Plus, there is an enormous cultural baggage that I would not have had to explain to a Russian-speaking analyst. The word “mother” means vastly different things in our culture than it means to people from other cultures. And my analyst is Jungian, so there is this whole thing with folk tales where he has had to read tons of folk tales from my region of the world to see what imagery organizes my thinking.
I would not be able to do analysis in Spanish because my Spanish persona was acquired quite late in adulthood. Speaking Spanish for me is, more often than not, performing. As it is, I perform too much. And if I did analysis in Spanish, there would be nothing but performance. Plus, I have to control Spanish more than, say, English when I speak. Imagine a tearful account of a tragic situation that is interrupted by thoughts like, “Hah, I used the present perfect subjunctive very elegantly here, good for me.”
However, there are definite benefits to a “foreign” analyst. The look of complete shock on my analyst’s face when I shared some stories of my very normal, Soviet childhood have had an enormous therapeutic effect. 🙂 And when you have to explain things that seem “obvious” to you, that’s a good opportunity to see them in a different light.
In any case, an imperfect analyst is better than none. A person who wants results will claw them out of any analyst, therapist, practice, etc. The most important – and the most difficult – thing one can do is to make the decision to change one’s life.
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“Speaking Spanish for me is, more often than not, performing.”
Yes, performing is the right word, I just couldn’t find it. I also think about grammatical rules when I speak English. Mainly because the Hungarian and the English language have completely different structure, and if I just let the words pop out of my mouth on their own, the other person wouldn’t understand a word albeit I would speak English. So basically people in foreign countries have two choices: 1. They have to settle for a less effecient therapy with the foreign analyst. 2. They can go for an online analyst from their home country on their native language, and participate in a Skype session (which is an existent service). What do you think is the better option?
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“1. They have to settle for a less effecient therapy with the foreign analyst. 2. They can go for an online analyst from their home country on their native language, and participate in a Skype session (which is an existent service). What do you think is the better option?”
– I’m doing analysis through Skype and my analyst does scholarly research on the uses of Skype in analysis. So here is the important part: there are some people who are exceptionally well adapted to analysis through Skype. If you are a blogger or participate heavily on blogs and online forums, chances are you are very well-suited for analysis through Skype. However, if you see a screen as a barrier, there might be a problem.
Also, and this is very important, the most important thing when choosing the analyst is not the language, the medium or the qualifications. The most important thing is a mutual affinity, a personal click. If it doesn’t click, if you don’t feel comfortable with this person, if you don’t feel like “oh, this is totally the person I can easily discuss my excretory function and my sexual fantasies with and not feel embarrassed, then that’s the person for you. Anything else is less important. And if you just don’t feel comfortable during the first, exploratory session, it’s OK to keep looking. Trust your instinct.
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Do you sometimes meet him in person, or are the sessions always online? Something else: I can’t find a psychoanalyst in my region, but I can find some pyschodynamic psychotherapists. Don’t you know if the 2 things are the same? The descriptions online are a little vague. They mention that the different approaches psychodynamic psychotherapy have evolved from the psychoanalytic theory, but they don’t specifically reference Freud or Jung.
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I’ve heard some really positive things about psychodynamic psychotherapy. They work a lot with Winnicott, and Winnicott rocks, in my opinion.
I do hope to meet my analyst in person one day but I would have to travel to British Columbia to do that.
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I just saw on her website that what my therapist does is apparently also called psychodynamic psychotherapy, so I can second Clarissa’s point that is very good, although I am actually not sure what it means. 🙂 Regarding skype, this did not work well for me. I got very tense and nervous and broke several things I had in my hand during session. This despite being online a lot. For me the act of going up the stairs and into the therapist’s room is really important. Of course this will vary completely from person to person. But it might be important to try out both before you decide how to proceed, so you can experience the difference.
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“Regarding skype, this did not work well for me. I got very tense and nervous and broke several things I had in my hand during session. This despite being online a lot. For me the act of going up the stairs and into the therapist’s room is really important. Of course this will vary completely from person to person. ”
– Exactly! This are very complex and sensitive matters. But the most important thing is just to begin.
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@zinemin
Thanks zinemin for mentioning your psychodynamic therapy. Did you choose this approach consciously, or did it just happen that way?
@clarissa
I will look up Winnicott, I’ve never heard about him. I’m afraid Skype also wouldn’t work for me. I don’t know why but I just freak out about the idea, albeit I spend a lot of time online. I think I’d rather use a foreign language, maybe I dare tell more things about myself if I can use it as a mask.
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“I think Musteryou was downvoted by the well-fed “contemporary Westerner” my partner saw the other day at Kentucky Fried Chicken, who yelled at the minimum-wage earner, hardworking, immigrant cashier girl whose intelligence quotient was about 100 points higher than that of this hysterical consumer queen, because there wasn’t enough mayonnaise in her sandwich, till the cashier girl began to cry and was unable to continue her work.”
Yeah, I downvoted myself. But that scenario is exactly what I was talking about and similar (or the same?) as a clip I saw on Facebook just this morning. It is EXACTLY what I am getting at. Thank you.
In any case, these days I am in the process of aggressively expanding my mental territory and knowledge, so I am going to employ moderated aggression a lot more. The point is to get people to discuss intellectual matters with me, rather than focusing on whether I am nice or not. I’m now way to old to care if others think I am a pleasant lady. I’m not at all in domesticated territory. I cut my own hair, I do stuff in my own way and on my own time. I’m wild.
And I’ve never understood psychoanalysis. As much as I’ve studied it for many years, I can only understand its formal properties. I have no intuitive sense of its meaning, at least for the most part. If I sit still and really, really focus, at times I can almost catch a glimpse of some aspects of the kind of psyche that it seems to presume exists. Other times, I simply cannot catch sight of anything at all.
Now that I am pretty elderly, I don’t mind saying so. I will wear my ignorance as a badge of honor, because why not. In fact, though, provoking reactions, so long as they are intellectual or potential have complex content, is my mode of operation now. I have to get material for my writing. Let us see how many people I can get to move out of the consumer mode.
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“If I sit still and really, really focus, at times I can almost catch a glimpse of some aspects of the kind of psyche that it seems to presume exists. Other times, I simply cannot catch sight of anything at all.”
– Not surprising given that one of the foundational ideas of psychoanalysis is that one cannot access one’s own subconscious. 🙂 🙂
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Yeah, but talking to me that way is not really that interesting to me.
For one, I am not talking about myself necessarily, but talking about one’s intuitive aptitude with a particular paradigm. ( In passing, I note that those who easily understand psychoanalysis do not understand shamanism, as a rule. )
Secondly, consider that I did finally finish my memoir to my very, very deep satisfaction and that this business is now done. I do not have even the slightest inkling that it is not done.
Thirdly, taking something on faith and relegating one’s lack of understanding to the strange workings of one’s subconscious is profoundly unethical in view. I’m very hostile to faith-based perspectives.
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“Yeah, but talking to me that way is not really that interesting to me.”
– Believe it or not, the only person I ever wanted to be interesting to is myself. Strangely, though, this approach ends up making me interesting to many people.
“In passing, I note that those who easily understand psychoanalysis”
– It’s not something to understand. I have no idea how or why it works. But the point is that it works. I also don’t really understand any of the things that the dentist does in my mouth. But I’m not supposed to understand them. All that matters that the dentist’s activities inside my mouth help. If instead of just going and having the dentist take care of my toothache I sat here and read books on dentistry, trying to understand it, I’d still be in pain.
“Secondly, consider that I did finally finish my memoir to my very, very deep satisfaction and that this business is now done. I do not have even the slightest inkling that it is not done.”
– Congratulations!!! Although, I don’t know how this is connected to the rest of the discussion. But still, congratulations!
“Thirdly, taking something on faith and relegating one’s lack of understanding to the strange workings of one’s subconscious is profoundly unethical in view. ”
– According to this logic, each of my numerous visits to my dentist is deeply unethical. 🙂
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I’m referring to an intellectual paradigm: psychoanalysis. I’m also referring to the fact that one does gain access to one’s subconscious, in some instances (re. ,my memoir)
Obviously, we are going to agree to disagree. to me there is no similarity between a psychoanalyst and a dentist. They are things apart. For instance, I could open a book on dentistry and study it and actually become a dentist. The information is readily available. After that I could be taught dentistry technique. This can be taught.
In any case, I get the impression you don’t really understand what I am saying. I’ll just let the subject drop.
I think what is clear is that some people have an intuitive attraction to psychoanalysis and perhaps can benefit from it, since it speaks to their kind of psychology.
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“I’m also referring to the fact that one does gain access to one’s subconscious, in some instances (re. ,my memoir)”
– As a literary critic, I see no connection between the genre of autobiography and the subconscious.
“For instance, I could open a book on dentistry and study it and actually become a dentist.”
– That is really not how people become dentists, and you know that. Dentistry is a highly formalized field of knowledge and an equally formalized practice. Just like psychoanalysis. Nobody is trying to drag you to an analyst because this is not a process that will work unless you really really want it to.
“I think what is clear is that some people have an intuitive attraction to psychoanalysis and perhaps can benefit from it, since it speaks to their kind of psychology.”
– Everybody’s psyche is structured the same way. Just like everybody’s teeth.
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Yeah, we just totally disagree on all those points. And. Try not to forget that I am also trained as a literary critic among other things.
Also to be extremely clear (yet again) my reason for opening this discussion is to do with intellectual matters primarily, which is why I keep trying to tell you that if address me as if I had resistance issues, that is not going to have any result. I’m happy for you to please yourself in whatever you have to say, but in terms of communication that is not an effective method.
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“Also to be extremely clear (yet again) my reason for opening this discussion is to do with intellectual matters primarily, which is why I keep trying to tell you that if address me as if I had resistance issues, that is not going to have any result. I’m happy for you to please yourself in whatever you have to say, but in terms of communication that is not an effective method.”
– An effective method of what? My only goal in this post – as I stated three times already – is to provide information about psychoanalysis to people who want it. I give a solemn promise that I will not hunt after people who don’t want it and try to force them to absorb the information.
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I was referring to how you said you were only ever keen to please yourself upthread.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am in no way intending to disrupt your information provision or even to question it or to be in any way controversial. I’m just, also, pleasing myself. I feel like it is good for me to get into a more aggressive mode these days, so that is what I am doing.
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I’m all for more aggressive modes. Yay for aggression.
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My subconcious has commanded it.
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“My subconcious has commanded it.”
– Trust it. It knows what it’s doing. 🙂
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Nietzsche said that all good things make their way through meandering paths. In other words, we need to trust our subconscious, so that we can become what we are.
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About the universality or not of psychoanalysis — about which I do not know enough to make many sure statements, but: it is my impression that it is culturally bound. As in, it seems to presuppose a psychic structure born of a nuclear family, organized on a bourgeois model and in modernity. It also focuses on interiority and the past. Looks inward and back. I am not saying that this (if true) is bad — only that it is a partial perspective. Reactions?
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Of course, people from deeply patriarchal societies where an individual is owned by his or her clan and not allowed any subjectivity will not be able to undergo analysis. Psychoanalysis breaks the fiercest patriarchal and religious taboos. Only people who are ready to drop the crutches of religion and family and stand on their own as individuals can undergo psychoanalysis. Obviously, this is the minority of people on the planet.
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@musteryou
“I cut my own hair, I do stuff in my own way and on my own time. I’m wild.”
I’ve also cut my own hair in the last 7 or 8 years. I have a weird aversion towards the whole beauty industry, but especially towards the act of going to the hairdresser’s. Anyway, nobody have found it out till now, and I wouldn’t dare admit it publicly, because I’m already considered weird enough, I couldn’t bear more.
“The point is to get people to discuss intellectual matters with me, rather than focusing on whether I am nice or not. I’m now way to old to care if others think I am a pleasant lady. I’m not at all in domesticated territory.”
Nice people usually can’t discuss intellectual matters at all. Smalltalk that’s what is really nice. There are enough pleasant smiling monkeys out there already, the world doesn’t need more. Wild old ladies are way more interesting, at least they can teach something to the next generation other than brainless adaptation.
“If I sit still and really, really focus, at times I can almost catch a glimpse of some aspects of the kind of psyche that it seems to presume exists.”
I don’t know much about shamanism, in fact I know nothing about it, but what I understand now is that according to shamanism people can reach their own subconscious after a certain time of practice/training, while psychoanalysis says that’s not possible, but otherwise the two processes are quite similar, or do I misunderstand it?
“Let us see how many people I can get to move out of the consumer mode.”
Zero. People with the consumer mentality avoid people like you like the plague. Reinforcing people who resist the maximum one can reach.
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“People with the consumer mentality avoid people like you like the plague.”
– I have consumer mentality and am proud of it. But I adore musteryou. 🙂
“I don’t know much about shamanism, in fact I know nothing about it, but what I understand now is that according to shamanism people can reach their own subconscious after a certain time of practice/training, while psychoanalysis says that’s not possible, but otherwise the two processes are quite similar, ”
– One can take either road, depending on one’s preferences, and one can definitely achieve results through both strategies.
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Thank you so much for this post and the resulting discussion!
“People with the consumer mentality ”
– Could you define consumer mentality? I don’t buy many clothes or shoes, but when I do I make sure they’re very good quality. That, and food are two things I don’t compromise on. Is that consumer mentality?
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I’m writing a separate post about consumer mentality.
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