I. Two impulses, perhaps in tension, perhaps not: 1. I'm suspicious of the pat revelations and 'truths' that are peddled by the therapy of popular imagination ('oh, I'm no good at relationships as an adult because I have an unresolved fear of abandonment from my childhood' etc). 2. I've thought plenty of times in the past about trying to find a good psychoanalyst, not because of a desire to solve - or resolve - any particular issues, but because I imagine that it might provide an interesting, and different, perspective and framing way of thinking about my self.
II. During my honours year, I did a subject called "Freud, Fiction, Lacan". Some of the students in the class - there were perhaps 20 in all, maybe less - were thoroughly convinced by the value of psychoanalytic theory. I was not. I recall perhaps the most committed of those others saying to me, over a post-class beer, I think, "Howard, why are you so resistant to psychoanalytic theory?". Having said that, Lacan in particular struck a bit of a chord, and I came away with some useful insights and a desire to grapple with it more.
III. Wei sent me this book a while back (the modern way, via a bookdepository order), and quite deliberately, following some conversations we'd had over skype. Grosz is a practising psychoanalyst, and in The Examined Life, he recounts a series of encounters, mostly with patients, each encapsulating and illustrating some truth about how people make sense - or otherwise - of themselves and their lives. It's a premise that had the potential to be severely didactic and heavy-handed, but instead it really has made me reflect on the way that the stories we tell ourselves, often all unknowing, structure and shape our selves and our lives, including (albeit in a somewhat unformed way) how that may translate for me. I was writing about Siri Hustvedt just earlier today; I can see a similarity of approach and style in Grosz's writing, even though it takes a different form.
II. During my honours year, I did a subject called "Freud, Fiction, Lacan". Some of the students in the class - there were perhaps 20 in all, maybe less - were thoroughly convinced by the value of psychoanalytic theory. I was not. I recall perhaps the most committed of those others saying to me, over a post-class beer, I think, "Howard, why are you so resistant to psychoanalytic theory?". Having said that, Lacan in particular struck a bit of a chord, and I came away with some useful insights and a desire to grapple with it more.
III. Wei sent me this book a while back (the modern way, via a bookdepository order), and quite deliberately, following some conversations we'd had over skype. Grosz is a practising psychoanalyst, and in The Examined Life, he recounts a series of encounters, mostly with patients, each encapsulating and illustrating some truth about how people make sense - or otherwise - of themselves and their lives. It's a premise that had the potential to be severely didactic and heavy-handed, but instead it really has made me reflect on the way that the stories we tell ourselves, often all unknowing, structure and shape our selves and our lives, including (albeit in a somewhat unformed way) how that may translate for me. I was writing about Siri Hustvedt just earlier today; I can see a similarity of approach and style in Grosz's writing, even though it takes a different form.
