Dr Ian De Saxe
Whelan quotes Peter Conrad: ‘Psychoanalysis is meant to be a talking cure.
Its greatest boon, however, may be its gift to writers, who silently transcribe what they cannot or dare not say out loud, and in doing so - if they're lucky - heal themselves.’
Although Freud himself was interested in literature, perhaps to direct the enlightenment which psychoanalysis may bring, onto the personal liberation of the writer, risks being a narcissistic enterprise.
For psychoanalysis was not only a method, which writing creatively resembles in its free associations. It was and remains a set of theories and conclusions about the human condition. These conclusions, as Freud and his successors wrote about them, in fact contain radical messages about society, which, by focusing purely on the process of writing and the healing effect it may have on some, if not all writers, avoids the necessary albeit unpleasant societal/political message which psychoanalytic theory contains. To liberate the internal demons from silence through a talking cure has as its logical conclusion the creation of an environment externally receptive to talking as well.
Edward Said has suggested that it is not sufficient to write: one must also take action.
His ideas have almost certainly influenced the Palestinian intifada. Writing, perhaps, affects the illusion of action, although it is of course an internal action for the writer, which may be the reason it is healing for some and a mechanism of survival for others, and indeed spur others on to action.
Yet the context in which Freud developed his ideas must be taken into account in thinking about the role of psychoanalysis. This was a context in which West European society was starting to emerge from centuries of anti-Semitism, but was still struggling with the relative freedom allowed to Jews in some countries. As we know, this was an environment which dogged Freud and his family throughout his life.
Thus, although psychoanalysis appears to be about the inner freedom of the imprisoned individual within, there is, in true Freudian fashion, the converse message that the individual is imprisoned within society. To write gives the illusion of freedom of ideas, but these ideas are meaningless unless they bring about the true liberation of the individual to act. To write while in a concentration camp may help survival within, but surely, this is not liberation. Though Freud was a great writer, he was also a radical leader and by implication, all analysands should become radical leaders, as it were. Many of his fellow medicos did not want to recognize him, and today there are those in the healing professions who are happy to recognize Freud as a great contributor to literature, but not to society.
Those who today seek to propose the death of psychoanalysis, one of the outcomes Whelan canvasses, in fact propose replacing it with alleged truths of medical and economic sciences, which, in their structures, resemble the very order which Freud sought to liberate people from. Hence, Conrad's comments concerning that which the writer "cannot or dare not say aloud" imply that psychoanalysis has as its true end the production of an environment in which the writer can and does dare to say aloud that which he thinks.
Freud's legacy therefore may not be the illusion of liberation through writing, but true liberation through radical social change. The father who cedes power to his daughter, for instance. Doing, one might say, rather than dabbling. Is writing doing? That is the leading question.
Dr Ian De Saxe
Psychiatrist.
