In These Pages…

Some time ago, by chance, I found myself reading in a short time three books in which some of the characters were psychoanalysts. Two of the books were fiction, the other a personal memoir. All three were written by psychiatrists and directed at a popular audience. In all three, the psychoanalysts were portrayed in ways that I found distressing; they were cold, arrogant, distant, and terrible as psychotherapists. Most of these characters were obviously caricatures, but recognizing that the best caricature is based on an exaggeration of real features, I wondered if these are the ways myself and my colleagues might be seen by others. If the books held up a mirror to us, for us to see ourselves as others see us, even if the mirror, like those in a fun house, shows a distorted image, it may be the image for which we are known. It may show some us something about ourselves that our own—also distorting—mirrors may not let us see clearly. Perhaps in these other mirrors we ought to check whether our makeup needs a touch up and if our ties are straight.

Douglas Ingram greeted the manuscript based on my reaction to these books with the suggestion that we might look at some other “mirrors”— some other ways that psychoanalysis is seen. The articles in this special section by Leon Hoffman, Kay Souter, Harvey Greenberg, and Nancy McWilliams are the result of that suggestion. Their reflections provide multiple views of ourselves and our profession.

Greenberg, who has written numerous essays and reviews on cinema and popular media, looks at our image as psychotherapists—a role that he names “cinetherapy.” Our screen image may not be entirely flattering. None of us are Doctors Dippy, Wonderful, Evil, or Horny, but we should know that the people who come to us as colleagues or as patients may see us through those lenses. The “silver screen” may be a mirror that distorts our image in terms of dramatic plot and condensation of time and place, and it is the mirror that we are reflected in