December 1996
Happy Holidays
In this season of giving, the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute would like to offer the media, through News Room, a change of pace. The articles in this issue describe the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis and poetry and psychoanalysis. We've also included a reading list of books that illustrate the struggles and joys of human existence from a psychological perspective.
The San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute has compiled an index of every article that has appeared in News Room since its inception. The index will be sent to you in lieu of the next issue of the publication.
Regards,
Mark Levy, M.D. - Editor
Literature and Psychoanalysis
Literature and psychoanalysis have had a long association. The writings of Sigmund Freud, the "father" of psychoanalysis, are filled with literary references and examples. Many of the discoveries of psychoanalysis were anticipated in the work of great writers such as Jane Austen and Fyodor Dostoevsky.
In a new book, The Therapeutic Narrative - Fictional Relationships and the Process of Psychological Change, Palo Alto psychoanalysts Richard and Barbara Almond draw a new connection between literature and psychoanalysis.- They postulate that many novels contain the same sort of human interactions that lead to personal growth during therapy. In the professional therapeutic relationship, the human bond that is formed between patient and therapist plays a crucial role in supporting positive change. In novels the interactions often occur between two characters, leading at least one of them to profound personality alterations. This therapeutic narrative fascinates readers, for whom the possibility of change is a theme with great appeal in that it speaks to their own potential for growth.
A good example of the therapeutic narrative can be found in Jane Austen's classic, Pride and Prejudice. The heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, is particularly close to her father, and she has taken on his teasing, cynical way of looking at the world. "'This identification protects Elizabeth from the attractions of courtship and adult sexuality," says Richard Almond. "But the identification also prevents her from recognizing Darcy's interest in her, or her own interest in him. It is not until Elizabeth finds she has made major errors in judgment about Darcy and another man that she recognizes the defenses that have misled her. After a crucial letter from Darcy she exclaims, "till this moment, I never knew myself." This recognition eventually allows her to love and marry Darcy.
"Just as the psychoanalyst is a student of the human imagination, the novelist is an observer of the human condition," Richard Almond concludes. "By looking at novels in a therapeutic way we hope to enrich people's understanding of literature as well as educate readers about the nature of the change process in psychotherapy."
To arrange an interview with Richard or Barbara Almond about the therapeutic narrative, please call Media Consultant, Mary Tressel at 1-800-260-2663.
Poetry and Psychoanalysis
When we imagine what psychoanalysis is all about, we may picture a patient lying on a couch as patient and analyst probe the unconscious. What we probably don't think about is the similarity between psychoanalysis and poetry, but, as psychoanalyst Alice Jones, M.D., points out, poetry and analysis have much in common.
Dr. Jones, who is also a psychiatrist and an award winning poet, says, "Both processes rely on finding a voice for the (supposedly) unsayable, on being able to put into words what Keats called 'the true voice of feeling.' Both poetry and analysis tap into a mode of thought that links things by association, not by logic. We discover a place where meaning is governed by fantasy"
In both poetry and psychoanalysis, words, sounds and silences all have an important impact on meaning. Dr. Jones explains, "The voice of poetry and the conversations between patient and analyst reflect the texture of words and the silences between them. Meaning is often found in the mingling of sound and silence in this textural, nonrational way." Dr. Jones is currently working on a series of poems about swimming, where she speaks of being in two worlds simultaneously: one above the water, and one below. Her description of these "swimming poems" is an apt metaphor for her chosen professions. "In analysis and in poetry, we hear the surface texture of words while we seek to get a glimpse of the depths."
To arrange an interview with Dr. Jones about poetry and Psychoanalysis, call Media Consultant, Consultant Mary Tressel at 1-800-260-2663.
A Psychoanalytic Reading List
by Mitchell Wilson, M.D.
Psychoanalysis speaks to the struggles and the joys of human existence. Psychoanalysts are concerned with the basics of being a person. Accordingly, when one considers where an interested reader might go to learn more about psychoanalysis, or to experience the psychoanalytic sensibility as it s captured in literature, the list is a rich and varied one. Listed below are books that in some important way are about psychoanalysis or that capture the psychoanalytic point of view.
>- Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, by Janet Malcom. In this readable and fascinating book, originally published in the New Yorker, Malcom traces the history of psychoanalysis, especially controversies within the field about the training of psychoanalysts and the nature of psychoanalytic work.
>- The Art of Loving, by Eric Fromm. This is a classic. Fromm, a psychoanalyst, describes what it takes, psychologically and emotionally, for one person to love another.
>- Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Salinger captures like no one else the developmental struggle each adolescent faces in forging meaningful personal identity.
>- To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. In this classic of modernist literature, Woolf describes the interior of each character - their desires, hopes and worries - in the context of typical family struggles. Like the psychoanalytic method of free association, Woolf captures movements of thought and desire in each character's mind. This focus on the internal workings of the mind is an essential aspect of the psychoanalytic point of view.
>- Remains of the Day, by Kenzo Ishiguro. Ishiguro's narrator is a dedicated head butler to an English aristocrat. The narrator lets the reader know, without himself knowing, how he deceives himself about his own motives and desires, and ultimately, how he limits himself and his life. This is a fascinating description of the nature of self deception and the ways in which rationalization contributes, in the end tragically, to that deception.
To arrange an interview with Dr. Wilson about books and psychoanalysis, call Media Consultant, Mary Tressel at 1-800-260-2663.