From a Paris Seminar
July 10th 1978
From: A Paris seminar | 10 July 1978
“The more you know about yourself, the more you know which vertex to choose in order to look at the problem. For example, looking at this man who I have tried to describe, would you choose him to go mountaineering with? … Never mind about psychoanalysis or psychiatry for the moment – is there anything you would choose him for? Whether we like it or not, the choice is an arbitrary one because analysis has to be done by each of us alone – it is a lonely occupation.
We have become used to the idea that psychoanalysis is an attempt to make a scientific approach to the human personality. It is a view which attaches great importance to facts, to the truth, to the real thing. If that is so, there are plenty of people who are scientists without that official categorization. A painter, for example, may believe that a painting should be true to truth, should show you some aspect of reality which you might otherwise not notice. He is not a psychoanalyst, but he paints a picture. Look at this picture and then you may see what a tree or a face looks like. If an author writes about imaginary characters like Falstaff, Lear, Othello, Macbeth, they ought nevertheless to remind us of real people. Does the last scientific article that you read in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis remind you of real people, or doesn’t it?
… I come across a lot of what is thought to be scientific psychoanalysis, but it doesn’t remind me of anything except boredom. The situation in the consulting room, the relationship between these two people, could be like the ashes of a fire. Is there any spark which could be blown into a flame? In this little bit I have described, we would have to examine, observe, devote care to mental debris – bits of what we have been taught, bits of what we have learnt, bits of what the patient has been taught. In analysis one is seeing the totality of debris. What has happened to the face of a man of forty-two? Why does he look twenty-five or sixty-two? Why does he say he is forty- two? It is all part of the debris. Do those pieces come together? Would you be able to put them together so that they make sense?”
“The more you know about yourself, the more you know which vertex to choose in order to look at the problem. For example, looking at this man who I have tried to describe, would you choose him to go mountaineering with? … Never mind about psychoanalysis or psychiatry for the moment – is there anything you would choose him for? Whether we like it or not, the choice is an arbitrary one because analysis has to be done by each of us alone – it is a lonely occupation.
We have become used to the idea that psychoanalysis is an attempt to make a scientific approach to the human personality. It is a view which attaches great importance to facts, to the truth, to the real thing. If that is so, there are plenty of people who are scientists without that official categorization. A painter, for example, may believe that a painting should be true to truth, should show you some aspect of reality which you might otherwise not notice. He is not a psychoanalyst, but he paints a picture. Look at this picture and then you may see what a tree or a face looks like. If an author writes about imaginary characters like Falstaff, Lear, Othello, Macbeth, they ought nevertheless to remind us of real people. Does the last scientific article that you read in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis remind you of real people, or doesn’t it?
… I come across a lot of what is thought to be scientific psychoanalysis, but it doesn’t remind me of anything except boredom. The situation in the consulting room, the relationship between these two people, could be like the ashes of a fire. Is there any spark which could be blown into a flame? In this little bit I have described, we would have to examine, observe, devote care to mental debris – bits of what we have been taught, bits of what we have learnt, bits of what the patient has been taught. In analysis one is seeing the totality of debris. What has happened to the face of a man of forty-two? Why does he look twenty-five or sixty-two? Why does he say he is forty- two? It is all part of the debris. Do those pieces come together? Would you be able to put them together so that they make sense?”
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