Therapy and Antitherapy in Salinger's “Zooey”

In a previous paper (1), I attempted to explain the psycho-dynamics of an encounter between Franny, in Salinger's story of that name (2), and her “boy friend” and first “therapist,” Lane—an encounter that culminates in her breakdown on a Saturday morning in November. “Zooey,” the companion story, begins the following Monday morning with Franny, still ill, lying on an improvised bed in the living room of her home in New York, and ends with her cure, effected by her brother, Zooey. The two stories, therefore, may be considered studies in therapy and antitherapy. We know how the breakdown occurred. Now we need to know how the cure took place.

Let us briefly review the etiology of Franny's severe depression: The immediate cause is her recognition of an impulse to tear down Lane as she has depreciated all men. Retaliating, Lane has ridiculed her religious beliefs and ideals, threatening the release against the self of the aggression bound up in those ideals, which were originally those of Seymour, the eldest brother—a genius who had committed suicide eight years earlier—with whom she had identified. Added to the fear of loss of the ego ideal is the fear of loss of the object to whom she is trying to transfer her love. This fear is aggravated by her collapse, which has ruined the tryst. The reactive depression is intensified by the identity crisis caused by the unresolved symbiotic problems of the lovers. The work of mourning for Seymour, savant and family idol, has never been completed. Hence the hidden rages against Seymour are directed against the self and add to the depression and the feelings of worthlessness. Owing to the tarnishing of her ego ideal, Seymour, large amounts of narcissistic” libido of an essentially homosexual kind [which] are drawn into the formation of the narcissistic ego ideal and find outlet and satisfaction in maintaining