The Fundamental Rule and Fundamental Value of Psychoanalysis

Antiphon the orator lived in the second half of the fifth century B.C. He is known for having played a crucial role in overthrowing Athenian democracy, in the oligarchical coup of 411 B.C. When democracy was restored, Antiphon was tried for treason and condemned to death.1 Less well known is that Antiphon had a life before he took up politics. He was a budding psychoanalyst. As Pseudo-Plutarch (3rd-4th century A.D.) tells us in the Lives of Ten Orators,

While Antiphon was still occupying himself with poetry he invented a method for curing mental distress, no different in its way from being treated for a physical ailment by a doctor; he built himself premises near the agora in Corinth and posted an advertisement to the effect that he had found a talking cure for distress. And by delving into the reasons for their distress he used to bring his patients relief. But he considered this profession beneath his dignity and turned to oratory instead [833c-d].

I find this vignette at once delightful and poignant: it suggests not only that there is something internal to human life that will press us to discover psychoanalysis (or something like it) over and over again; but that in the very same moment there will be internalized social pressure to turn