Karbelnig, Alan M. (2019). ‘The theater of the unconscious mind’.  Psychoanalytic Psychology,  37, 4,  273-81.

In his essay ‘The theater of the unconscious mind’, Alan Karbelnig documents how psychoanalysts have historically used theatrical language and metaphor to describe their theories and analytic encounters. This well-researched article explores the way theatrical analogies can help add flesh and bone to complex psychoanalytic ideas and their interpretation. He points out that psychoanalysts from differing schools refer to ‘internal dramas’, ‘theaters’ of the mind and body, ‘enactments’, ‘roles’, ‘scripts’, and the ‘drama’ between analyst and patient. For Karbelnig , the ‘theater of the psychoanalytic consulting room’ remains a ‘relevant’ analogy because ‘dramatic themes unfold instantaneously, in the inner and outside worlds, during psychoanalytic sessions’ (p. 281).

Karbelnig ‘stages’ his ideas by providing clinical vignettes where unconscious elements become animated (and thus visible) through the exploration of a dramatic narrative. Each case - either a play (Shakespeare's Coriolanus), a piece of literature (John Irving's The Cider House Rules), or a dramatic encounter with an inner figure (a marauding pirate) - helped to flesh out unconscious dramas taking place within and without the field of analyst and patient. Each scenario offers a compelling example of the author's thesis that viewing unconscious dynamics through a theatrical lens can add shape and depth to analytic encounters. Karbelnig also notes that a theatrical approach can humanize technical-sounding psychoanalytic ideas such as ‘internal object’, ‘inter-subjective transactions’, ‘transitional phenomena’, etc., helping clients more readily grasp the workings of unconscious enactments. In short, for Karbelnig, theatrical analogies help animate unconscious processes for both analyst and patient with the result that they may become more accessible for viewing.

Karbelnig also proposes that the use of theatrical language and metaphor can bridge disparate models of the mind and varying methods of interpretatio