A commentary on Anzieu

In a time and world in which the notions of transience and change have become key for analysing and understanding problems, commenting on a text conceived half a century ago and twelve thousand kilometres away from my home culture presents a challenge unlikely to meet with success. Yet paradoxically, thinking about the psychoanalysis of today in light of the past is an inevitable and necessary path for Freud’s successors. The controversy remains unsettled.

I was somewhat surprised reading this paper by Didier Anzieu. Instead of following the usual path of choosing a point to develop and exploring an issue in depth, Anzieu situates himself as a craftsman and takes several of our founder’s fundamental principles and concepts to affirm not only their purposes and advantages, but also the dangers and pitfalls to which they may give way. His focus is original and unusual.

His paper is divided into 16 paragraphs that structure the sequence. Right from the epigraph he adopts a provocative and challenging tone that, in response, creates more of a controversial reader than a devoted fan, and he demands a meticulous engagement with his agreements and discrepancies. He positions himself in the first person and demands of us the same. Freudianism refutes uniformity and obedience – this seems to be his central message.

Anzieu chooses four words of a noted poet for his epigraph: “Keep off the idolaters, bright watch-dog”. This epigraph strikes us in different ways before and after reading the text. Whom is it addressing? I take it as a warning or alarm bell about the concomitant advantages and dangers of the golden rule of our craft. The fragility of a subject in regression grants the subject’s interlocutor a power of suggestion that, in psychoanalysis, is only legitimate when not exercised. And the abyss of suggestion can be imminent.

Idolatry, in my view, consists of using masters as sacred leaders. This is a common vice among our tribe – one that suffocates the spontaneity of the