Discussion of Robert Bergman's Article "Our Secular Religion". What Sort of a Thing is Psychoanalysis, Who's to Say, and What of It?

Is psychoanalysis an art, a science, or, as Robert Bergman eloquently proposes, a religion? If it partakes of any of these, it could arguably just as well be considered a philosophy, a form of spirituality, a moral code, a value system, or, more broadly and simply, its own subculture. So challenging is this attempt to characterize psychoanalysis!

Here I'll offer some loosely linked observations on the question itself and on Dr. Bergman's perspective. From the outset, I find myself in closest agreement with his argument that psychoanalysis is fundamentally a practice. It's a mode of treating someone's psyche that's informed by a particular worldview and associated with a particular technique—these elements varying, depending on the practitioner's own character and personality, theoretical affiliation, relevant training and experience, and so forth. Psychoanalysis is one among a slew of self-exploratory, self-healing activities that we've needed to develop throughout the ages, to deal with the impact of the psychic damage we receive, and to grapple with our propensity for psychological and behavioral dysfunction.

For me, Dr. Bergman's commentary points to our being prone to classify psychoanalysis as one thing or another depending on our socio-political context and the zeitgeist to which we are attuned. If at a certain place and time science is believed in and prized, we may claim psychoanalytic thinking and therapy as scientific. If art, then we'll emphasize its aesthetic credentials. If religion is what's known and valued, then psychoanalysis will likely register as a form of religion. I'm not saying that characterizing a psychoanalytic process in this fashion is a marketing ploy or some other sort of crassly utilitarian act—whichever value predominates is simply the water that society or sub-society swims in, making it likely we'll identify with it. Calling our field whatever discipline is ascendant is what we need to do to invest it with validity and gravitas, and this in turn adds to its potential impactfulness. There's no harm—and can be some

good—in this, especially if we periodically take a step back and recognize the factors influencing our characterization of it.

Looking at this the other way around, whatever discipline the culture most closely expresses itself through, is also likely to be put to use addressing its members' psychic and emotional needs.

Now, the above comments speak to how psychoanalysis is broadly conceptualized, and from the perspective of its professional practitioners and fellow travelers (for instance, academics of various stripes, etc.). For patients, and when we ourselves are the patient, psychoanalysis is likely to register in a more personal, specific way. And this idiosyncratic, experiential one may be a more meaningful characterization than an overarching conceptual one. Depending on who the patient is—and who the analyst is perceived to be—psychoanalysis and analytic therapy may be for that patient a refuge, confessional, private club, drama, prison, wrestling match, experiment, self-evaluation or prognostication, proving ground, musical performance, or simply a type of higher education in the business of living. I suspect that for some it's primarily a socially acceptable excuse to take prescribed breaks in the workday, for authorized periods of recurrent companionship, and the like. I'm suggesting that the patient, through his or her contribution to the analytic third, co-determines what his or her treatment—and therefore, “psychoanalysis”—will be for him or her. That is, the patient shares significantly in shaping its primary function, style, tone, depth—even to some degree the methods the analyst will be able to employ in doing the work. After all, psychoanalysis is a “subjective object” (in Winnicott's terms), not an objective, absolute one. And it is not dictated solely by the analyst's conceptualization of what patient and analyst are doing.1 How the analytic process is co-created and registered by the patient plays a big role in the outcome of the work. For these reasons, we practitioners do well to avoid over-identifying with what we think—or like to think—we're doing.

I'm arguing for a more local and personalized understanding, from both analyst and patient's perspective, so it probably behooves me to speak to

what psychoanalysis is for me, as sometime-patient and ongoing analyst. Psychoanalysis feels to me like the all-important container of and channel for my own and others' inherent psychological mindedness. When this proclivity is strong enough in us, it often carries the self-expectation that we do something meaningful and useful with it. Ongoing psychological mindedness is both blessing and affliction, guiding force and exacting taskmaster. (The reader likely knows just what I mean.) We don't choose to introspect, to ponder our own and others' psychic life—it chooses us. Psychological mindedness is for many a signature sensibility and—to use a phrase that's unfairly discredited—a means for self-actualization. Psychoanalysis harnesses that sensibility into something that provides purpose and meaning—not to mention, it allows us to earn a living doing a more sophisticated, “accountable” version of what we can't help but do anyway.

Apropos of it choosing us—contrary to what I'd felt and believed earlier in life, I've come to recognize that a psychoanalytic belief system and psychological mindedness itself are not the be-all, end-all, and last word in understanding humans and their functioning. In fact, much as it pains me to say it, their applicability and utility have significant limitations, that show up in both the public and private spheres.

As a case in point, most of the analytic practitioners and other mental health professionals I know of2 view the man currently occupying the role of United States president as being a “malignant narcissist,” if not even more disordered.(See, for example, Justin Frank's 2018 book, Trump on the Couch, or Bandy X. Lee's 2019 book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, the 2nd edition). This considered professional judgment apparently matters not one whit to the man's party, as evidenced by its decision to back his patently destructive, impulsive actions, and even support his bid for a second term in office. We analysts have to encompass that discordant fact—that is, the incommensurability of our own diagnostic picture and that of a hefty chunk of this country's politicians and overall electorate. A psychoanalytic understanding of the man himself—and even the attempt to understand his supporters—only

takes us so far (and not far enough). We have to come to terms with the fact that our power to influence a larger social current is quite restricted. We know that the same is true for other arts, sciences, and religions, but ours is the discipline one would think might have special weight relative to the society's view of their leader's fitness to govern. Yet other factors affecting the populace—socio-economic, educational, racial, and so on—seem to outshout the mental health community's trained judgment. Here psychoanalysis runs up against its limits.

With respect to the personal sphere, many psychodynamically-oriented practitioners have adult offspring or other relatives in fields besides our own, who, through our influence, appear to have embraced a psycho-analytic perspective enough that they choose to plumb its possibilities within their own discipline. (Ok, there's usually a trace of parody in there as well, but that's to be expected.) I think here of remarkable writers like Ben Lerner (see his 2019 novel, The Topeka School), Amy Kurzweil (in her 2016 graphic memoir Flying Couch), and Steve Almond (especially his 2010 short story “Donkey Greedy, Donkey gets Punched,” not to mention his 2017-2018 New York Times “radically empathic” advice column.). The two male writers were brought up by a pair of analysts, the female by a therapist-mother who is psychodynamically oriented. What a delight it must be for these people's parents—how satisfying it must be, trading observations (interpretations?) over the holiday dinner table!

But often, our nearest and dearest just don't grasp—or outrightly reject—our psychoanalytic worldview. A probing, reflective exploration of the inner world (theirs, our own) is not welcomed. Closeness between us psychoanalytic clinicians and these loved ones will only emerge if pursued through other channels. Whether psychoanalysis is fish, fowl, or something else entirely, it's not necessarily the royal road to intimacy—or for that matter, comprehensive self-knowledge—I once imagined it to be.

My thoughts circle back to Dr. Bergman's early analytic training in Chicago, its interruption and his engagement with the Navajos, and his return to analytic training, now enriched by the wisdom of his Native American immersion, and ready to pass that on. Dr. Bergman's journey and his reflections on it demonstrate the importance of our working to escape being narrow and reductionistic, of our not being blinded

by the biases of our inherent psychic tendencies or standard ideological affiliations.

In conclusion, why get caught up in trying to find the “right” classification for psychoanalysis? What's most significant is to see it for the multifarious thing it is. This means keeping other disciplinary and subcultural viewpoints close at hand, to be drawn on regularly and assiduously as we strive to promote growth in our patients and ourselves, in the context of the ever more daunting socio-psychological and geo-political forces surrounding us.