Archive for the ‘Freud’ Category

Ice Breakers: Psychoanalysis, Civilization and Unnatural Nature

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

At the end of winter, there is much this city teaches me about how civilization conquers nature, or rather how it acts out its conquest.

This weekend I helped my girlfriend Tess break up ice in her back yard to prevent her basement from flooding when the big melt came. Ice breaking is a primally satisfying activity. You find a chunk of ice that looks defiant and you approach it with authority and a steel shovel. When the weather is just right your victory is assured. The first blow of the shovel blade announces your presence. The second and third cut a thin groove in the ice, a target for further blows. After an hour of self-taught shovel technique, I realize that the secret of shoveling is much like the secret of chopping wood: let the axe (or in this case the shovel blade) do the work.  I lift the shovel loosely let it dangle in the air for a moment (while for some inexplicable reason the words “I sacrifice you in the name of Quetzalcoatl” run through my mind) and bring it down with a relaxed stroke on target. After a few strokes comes the payoff. The crystal lattice of the ice gives way and a chunk breaks off with a resigned sigh. I break off one piece of ice so large it would make a very satisfactory front desk at an ice hotel. This is the beauty of ice. It resists, but when it breaks, it does so with a delightful suddenness. Remember the crumbling glaciers in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. (more…)

Posted in Freud, Montreal | No Comments »

Freud: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

No one was more surprised than I was at discovering that a meta-analysis on the effectiveness of long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (LTPP) (psychoanalysis, in other words) published in JAMA last year concluded that “In this meta-analysis, LTPP was significantly superior to shorter-term methods of psychotherapy with regard to overall outcome, target problems, and personality functioning. Long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy yielded large and stable effect sizes in the treatment of patients with personality disorders, multiple mental disorders, and chronic mental disorders. The effect sizes for overall outcome increased significantly between end of therapy and follow-up.” It turns out that statistical analyses have made an at least plausible case that those years spent in the “talking cure” are measurably effective, and even more effective than the more putatively efficient forms of therapy like Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. What surprised me most about this study was the surprise that it engendered in me. “Psychoanalysis is effective as a treatment?” I thought to myself. “Who knew?” I realize that I had been perfectly happy handing over the notion of “cure” to other forms of therapy. (more…)

Posted in Freud | 1 Comment »

Freud’s Virtual Mourning and The Crow’s Flight Beyond Melancholy

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Check the sidebar under My Papers for a new entry entitled “Freud’s Virtual Mourning and The Crow’s Flight Beyond Melancholy.” This paper brings together Freud’s theory of mourning as it evolves throughout his career, Deleuze’s theory of virtuality, Lacanian theory of subjectivity and Alex Proyas’s cult classis film The Crow, based on the graphic novel of the same name. Enjoy.

Posted in Freud | No Comments »

Dr. Seuss and Lacan: The Zax and The Origins of Culture

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

The Encounter

The Encounter

Dr. Seuss is so easy to read not just because of the sing-song rhythms of his poetry, but because it is always so comfortingly personal. “The Sneetches” is about understanding and cooperation, The Cat in the Hat is about personal responsibility, and the story that we will look at now, The Zax, seems to be a cautionary tale about the price of irrational stubbornness (or about irrationality in general). The tale is simplicity itself. It begins with an encounter in the desert.

What is strange about this picture is the seeming inevitability with which these two Zaxes are drawn to each other. It’s a big desert, but apparently there is only one path though it. The DeadlockSo the argument ensues, with each Zax appealing to his traditions and education. “For I live by a rule/that I learned as a boy back in South-Going School./Never Budge! That’s my rule. Never budge in the least! /Not an inch to the West! Not an inch to the East!“

Finally — and this this is the “lesson” that the story imparts — the world just expands around them, ignoring them and leaving them in this fruitless deadlock. (more…)

Posted in Freud, Lacan | 2 Comments »